Black-Student Camp Seeks 11th-Hour Funds : Education: City school program that starts Sunday remains $25,000 short of fund-raising goal.

Fund-raisers for a city schools summer camp for African-American male students have raised only half of their $50,000 goal with just four days remaining before the first of two weekly outdoors sessions in Julian is scheduled to begin.

Without an additional $25,000 by the end of this week, administrators may be forced to cancel the planned second session. That would deprive 150 secondary-school students of a chance to attend the YMCA’s Camp Marston to reward and build upon their progress during the school district’s experimental African-American pupil advocate program.

“We’re going to run the camp for at least one week,” Al Cook, assistant city schools superintendent who oversees the program, said, promising that 150 elementary students will leave as scheduled Sunday. The second week of the camp, for secondary-school students, is scheduled to begin June 23.

But Cook and Karen Goyette, a professional fund-raiser hired by the district in February, have been unsuccessful in their scramble to raise the additional money.

It costs $164 per student, or about $25,000 per week, to run the highly structured camp, where black male adults will reinforce academic lessons and discipline begun by teachers and student advocates during the school year as a way to help the students resist gang and other problems over the summer.

The fund-raising effort was begun in late February with a letter sent to 70 San Diegans on a “movers-and-shakers list,” Goyette said. Goyette said she was brought in by schools trustees after former board president Kay Davis was unsuccessful in her efforts to corral the full $50,000 from two wealthy San Diegans.

There are no district funds available for the camp.

Goyette blamed both the recession and the unfamiliarity among many San Diegans with the black male advocate program for the unexpected difficulty in raising the needed $50,000. The vast majority of people contacted for a donation had never heard of the program, Goyette said, adding that “it’s always hard to raise money on something that is started from scratch, that hasn’t been around long-term with a proven record.

“But I’m still optimistic because I believe so much in the program,” she said.

Her priority for the rest of this week will be “in working with three or four people, trying to get large donations, hoping for an ‘angel.’ ”

Goyette said that Cook and the four pupil advocates--at Gompers Secondary, Bell Junior High, and Fulton and Knox elementaries--will go back 90 prominent black San Diegans who have already made small donations and ask for additional help.

But, Cook added, “We’ve spent a lot of time with the $20 donors, and we really need to go after the big dollars right now.”

So far, the largest single donor has been the Ronald McDonald Children Charities, which gave $5,000, Goyette said, followed by $1,804 from Hartson’s Ambulance, $1,640 from the San Diego Hospital Council, and $1,000 each from San Diego Gas & Electric Co, the Price Foundation and the Weingart Foundation.

“But mostly we’ve gotten donations from individuals, about 200 of them, with many people supporting one or more individual camperships,” she said.

However, school board president Shirley Weber, professor of Africana studies at San Diego State University, expressed disappointment with the response of black professionals.

“I know there is a recession, but I think that black professionals, such as the (black) administrators in San Diego city schools, should have been more early and more public in their giving,” Weber said.

“We knock the welfare mentality, we talk about self-determination,” but black professionals sometimes have “the same mentality at a higher level,” leaving it to the “Coca-Colas and the Pepsis and other corporations” of the world to bail out their programs, she said.

“Sure, the (corporations) should support the black community--we drink as much or more Pepsi and Coors--but we have to have a level of our own foundation and self-determination in the (black) community, and it has to start with the middle class.”

If administrators prove unable to raise the money in time for a second week, Cook said, he might ask Camp Marston officials for credit, to be paid from receipts from fund raising that will continue into the summer to garner donations for a 1992 camp.

“I just hope to work something out with the camp,” Cook said.

The advocate program began in late December, 1989, in response to data both locally and nationwide that showed African-American male students are far more likely to end up in prison than in college, and from the philosophy that strong black adult male-role models can help these students build confidence and self-esteem.

The three-year pilot program varies among the four schools, but advocates at all the campuses counsel students not only about African-American culture but about working with others on homework assignments and other academic matters to raise their prospects. About 1,000 students at the four schools have been involved with the advocates.

No data on the success of the program is available, but anecdotal evidence, largely in the form of student testimonials, has been positive. Last December, district trustees voted to evaluate the program at the end of three years by comparing before-and-after drop-out rates, suspensions rates and numbers of high school graduates who qualify for University of California admission.