Hidden Villa summer camp boys of 1980, each wearing his special hat, prepare to square dance at the Duveneck house.

Hidden Villa has scheduled a public gala Saturday to celebrate the 60th anniversary of its summer camp. Josephine and Frank Duveneck, longtime owners of the 1,600-acre farm and preserve, founded the country’s first multicultural summer camp in 1945.

Hidden Villa campers and counselors from throughout the decades extolled the beauty of the sprawling Los Altos Hills wilderness preserve and touted the benefits of attending the multicultural camp.

Joe Olson, a camper from 1988 who became a junior counselor the following year, found a healthful balance at camp. Coming from a single-parent home, Olson said he was able to bond with “really great male role models.” His years at Hidden Villa “solidified a spiritual side” of him, he said.

Now a middle-school social studies teacher, Amani Dunham, a six-year camper, said the multicultural aspects of camp have nurtured her values.

“I stress similar values of tolerance in my classroom today. Part of the beauty of Hidden Villa is that it forms peoples’ lives in ways they don’t even know,” Dunham said. “I can’t imagine how my life would have turned out without this experience.”

Seth Bramble, a camper from the 1980s, learned a great lesson in socioeconomic reality when counselors organized a dinner. Campers were divided into groups and labeled rich, poor and middle class. The few rich were allowed to sample from a rich banquet, while the poor received a marginal share. Then the rules changed so that each group could barter and make deals with one another.

For more information, call 949-9704 or visit www.hiddenvilla.org.