Newsline: 70th anniversary of Civilian Public Service is celebrated

[CoBNews <CoBNews@brethren.org>]

Newsline: Church of the Brethren News Service, News Director Cheryl
Brumbaugh-Cayford, 800-323-8039 ext. 260, cobnews@brethren.org

70th anniversary of Civilian Public Service is to be celebrated

(May 11, 2011) Elgin, IL -- May 15 is the 70th anniversary of the first 
Civilian Public Service (CPS) camp opening in Patapsco, Md. A special 
celebration is being planned and is open to the public. Sponsors are the Church 
of the Brethren, the Mennonite Central Committee US, the Center on Conscience 
and War, the American Friends Service Committee, and the Kansas Committee for a 
CPS Memorial.

The event will include a picnic lunch, the launch of a new CPS website 
featuring a database of all CPS workers and camps, brief remarks by sponsoring 
agencies, CPS alumni and historians, and a visit to the Patapsco CPS Camp site 
in Patapsco Valley State Park. The picnic will begin at 1 p.m. at Relay Town 
Hall, 1710 Arlington Ave., Relay, Md. 

The CPS Memorial Website Project team of archivists includes Terrell Barkley, 
director of the Brethren Historical Library and Archives (BHLA); the late Ken 
Shaffer, former director of the BHLA; Wendy Chmielewski, George Cooley Curator 
of the Swarthmore College Peace Collection; Rich Preheim, director of the 
Mennonite Church USA Historical Committee; John Thiesen of the Mennonite 
Historical Library and Archives; Anne Yoder, archivist for the Swarthmore 
College Peace Collection; and from Lewis and Clark College, Paul Merchant and 
Doug Erickson. 

Others doing content review include J. Kenneth Kreider, professor emeritus, 
History, at Elizabethtown (Pa.) College. Jonathan Keeney, a Church of the 
Brethren member from Elgin, Ill., was hired by the project to scan images for 
all the CPS units/camps from the CPS photo collection in the BHLA.

Those interested in attending the celebration are requested to RSVP to Titus 
Peachey at tmp@mcc.org or 717-859-1151. For detailed directions, see 
www.artandeffects.com/special_projects/winter_gathering_directions.pdf.

The Church of the Brethren is a Christian denomination committed to continuing 
the work of
Jesus peacefully and simply, and to living out its faith in community. The 
denomination is based
in the Anabaptist and Pietist faith traditions and is one of the three Historic 
Peace Churches. It
celebrated its 300th anniversary in 2008. It counts some 123,000 members across 
the United
States and Puerto Rico, and has missions and sister churches in Nigeria, 
Brazil, the Dominican
Republic, Haiti, and India.

># # #

>For more information contact:

>Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford
>Director of News Services
>Church of the Brethren
>1451 Dundee Ave., Elgin, IL 60120
>800-323-8039 ext. 260
>cobnews@brethren.org