Longtime Camp Jabberwocky counselors who volunteered their time during the camp’s July session have not been invited to return this summer, and many members of the tight-knit Jabberwocky community are up in arms.

In emails, online comments and telephone interviews with the Gazette, several former July counselors and parents of July campers expressed both outrage and grief as they charged camp leadership with callously purging not only session directors Kristen (Sully) St. Amour and Johanna (Jojo) Romero de Slavy, but every volunteer associated with the two.

“This is a purposeful, complete elimination,” former counselor Brynn Staker said. “It’s been devastating.”

In an interview with the Gazette last week, executive director Liza Gallagher said the camp will bring in new directors and aims to eliminate its former distinctions between the July and August sessions.

Caitlin Lamb, granddaughter of founder Helen (Hellcat) Lamb and daughter of former camp director John Lamb, will be one of two co-directors for the entire summer season, Ms. Gallagher said.

A lifelong member of the Jabberwocky community, Ms. Lamb will share duties with Avis Olsen, who has been a camp director since the late 1990s.

“They bring decades of experience to camp,” Ms. Gallagher said. “Caitlin has been directing since 2017.”

She also expressed thanks to the former co-directors for their long service.

But others interviewed for this story claimed the two volunteers — who have more than 55 years of Jabberwocky experience between them — were not thanked, but blindsided when Ms. Gallagher fired them in a perfunctory Zoom call.

“It was done very harshly . . . I know it was less than five minutes, because Sully and Jojo called me right after it ended,” said Ms. Staker, who has been an unofficial assistant to the two in recent summers.

Responding to a request for comment, Ms. St. Amour and Ms. Romero de Slavy issued brief statements.

“We are devastated,” they told the Gazette by text message.

“It feels kind of like a death, to be honest with you,” said ex-counselor Maggie Raemer, who like Ms. Staker has been volunteering in July for a decade and a half.

“The grieving that I, and the whole [July] community [are] going through has been very, very painful,” Ms. Raemer said.

July volunteer Jordan Dobson fought tears as she contemplated summers without Camp Jabberwocky.

“I’ve spent five to six weeks of my summer [there] since 2008,” said Ms. Dobson, a special education teacher in the Baltimore public schools. “I’ve dropped everything and either flown or driven up there as soon as school ends . . . The only reason I don’t stay the entire summer is because I can’t afford it.”

She said camp administration did not notify the volunteers directly that they would not be returning in 2022.

“There’s usually an email that comes out in January that says ‘please send us your dates for this summer,’” she said.

This year: “Nothing at all,” Ms. Dobson said.

“That’s how every volunteer has been treated . . . who has not been asked back,” she said. “It feels like I’m not allowed there; it felt like my home.”

Parents of the people with disabilities who form the center of the Jabberwocky said they are rattled by the changes.

“This has been absolutely heartbreaking for us as a family, and almost all the families that I know that were involved in July camp,” said Lori Stoddard, whose 30-year-old son Sam has been attending for 15 summers.

“How is that in the best interest of our campers, that everybody they have known and loved over the years . . . they’re all taken away from them?” she asked.

“We have had so many sleepless nights over this,” Ms. Stoddard said. “He at first did not want to go back without them.”

Barbara Shellhorn, whose 40-year-old son Sam — camp name Rhino — has roomed for years with Sam Stoddard and a handful of other male campers in the Mome Rath cabin, said Jabberwocky leaders have indicated that the longtime group of friends may be split up into different cabins this year.

“This change isn’t good,” Ms. Shellhorn said. “As a parent of a son who has Down syndrome, it is very important to have continuity in his life.”

Ms. Stoddard said she has written the camp to say that if the Mome Rath group is splintered, her son won’t be returning.

“If they’re not together, we’re not going to send him,” she said.

Ms. Shellhorn and Ms. Stoddard said in a Zoom conversation with Jabberwocky trustees and others, parents were told that Ms. St. Amour and Ms. Romero de Slavy were dismissed for cause, but that the reason could not be disclosed for confidentiality reasons.

“We all think this is bogus,” Ms. Shellhorn said. “None of us ever felt our campers were in danger.”

In the earlier interview, Ms. Gallagher assured that many longtime campers would be returning. Jabberwocky’s four two-week summer sessions, with about 25 campers in each, will begin in late June, she said.

“All the traditions are still there,” Ms. Gallagher said.

She also said the organization is going through a broader reorganization and has downsized its board of directors, from 24 members to an all-local board of 12.

“We are looking forward to the future like any other organization,” she said. “We’re making changes that will be good for our growth.”