1 Camp Fills a Lot of Needs : Program: ‘Camp Torrance El’ has something for everyone: Foreign-born adults learn English while at-risk youths care for their children, and a school can provide vacation activities for its students.

Here’s a bureaucratic puzzler: Design a single summer program that creates jobs for low-income youths while providing English classes for foreign-born parents and day care for their kids.

City and school officials in Torrance took a crack at that problem and the solution they came up with is called “Camp Torrance El.”

At the camp, which was started last week, children ages 5 to 11 are cared for by low-income, teen-age counselors while their parents attend literacy classes. As a result, the youths are collecting paychecks, the parents are learning English and the kids are having fun.

“We just went out into the community and figured out how to beg, borrow and steal what we would need to make this happen,” said Lori Rayor, director of the Family English Literacy Project, one of five public agencies to help create the camp. “Everybody provides a little something here and there, and eventually we have a whole summer camp.”

A broad range of ages and backgrounds is represented at Camp Torrance El, which is named for its location--Torrance Elementary School, near the corner of Arlington and Lincoln avenues.

Parents from countries as diverse as Japan, Korea, Mexico and El Salvador study English on one side of a special on-campus bungalow while their preschool-age children and infants are entertained by day-care specialists on the other side of the room.

Class continues uninterrupted as fussy toddlers move freely across the room to crawl in and out of their mothers’ laps. The older children, meanwhile, take part in camp activities that include arts and crafts, reading, computer operation and outdoor games.

Because the camp has room for 150 children, and the families in the literacy program require only 42 of those spots, the rest of the camp slots are filled by students who attend Torrance Elementary School during the regular school year.

“We lucked out to get this,” said Steve Shearer, Torrance Elementary’s principal. “A lot of our kids don’t otherwise qualify for summer programs, which left a lot of them out in the cold. This is just terrific.”

Six sponsors are underwriting the camp--the Family English Literacy Project, the Torrance Police Department, the Torrance Parks and Recreation Department, the Torrance Unified School District, the Southern California Regional Occupational Center (SCROC) and a local Carl’s Jr. fast-food restaurant.

Camp Torrance El’s motto, “Kids Helping Kids,” describes how organizers overcame their most serious challenge--finding counselors.

Rayor said she asked other social service agencies for ideas. Friends at Mahar House, a community recreation center in Wilmington, provided an answer.

For nearly two decades, the center has trained low-income youths to care for younger children and used state and federal youth employment program funds to give them minimum-wage jobs running a small summer camp.

“This way, the youths are working and earning money, many for the first time, and we give them insight about how to behave, how to organize, how to relate with the younger children,” said Mahar House’s retired director, Velardo de la Pena. “The younger kids, they get to keep busy and have fun and learn new things. Everybody wins.”

Borrowing from Mahar House’s program, Rayor asked SCROC to help her get government-funded teen-age counselors. Gene Drevno, SCROC’s youth employment coordinator, agreed to help.

“Some of these kids are really terribly poor,” Drevno said. “Most of these youths are potentially at risk . . . and if we can give them job skills, give them a sense of responsibility, they can start getting ready for the world of work.”

By working with younger children, some of the youths become role models for the first time in their lives.

“Suddenly they have 10 kids watching them all the time and they start straightening up,” she said. “It all comes together for them.”

The youths agree.

“The kids feel like I’m their personal friend and they’re looking up to me,” said counselor CeCe Lloyd. “I’m 18, but I don’t feel like an adult yet, and these kids make me feel like it.”

Answering endless streams of questions, pleading for silence in a classroom’s exuberant chaos and drying sudden outbursts of tears has been a challenge, the counselors said.

“Now I know how the teachers felt when I was a kid,” Marco Ortega, 18, said. “You’ve got to be really patient. And you don’t want to break down into a nervous wreck.”

The camp has created an ideal summer for three generations of the Ramos family.

While Jovita Ramos takes English classes in the campus bungalow, her two younger children, Victor and Nellie, take part in the camp’s field trips, games and crafts projects. As Ramos studies, she also cuddles and holds a bottle for her two-month-old granddaughter, Krystal.

Nearby, the infant’s mother, Alicia, works as one of the camp’s teen-age counselors.

“I needed to work to buy my daughter’s diapers and earn money to take care of her,” said Alicia, 17, as one of her young charges ran up and gave her a warm hug. “This job helps me learn how to take care of my little girl as she grows up.”

Another young mother working as a counselor, 16-year-old Rhoda Babb, said the program allowed her to become a proud working mom who brings home a paycheck to help care for her 9-month-old son, Ricardo.

“But it’s more than just the paycheck,” Babb said. “It’s better than having some regular job, like working at the market. I’m learning a lot of things about being a good parent.”

Evidently, the children believe their counselors are doing a good job. As the half-day program came to a close one recent day, 6-year-old Joseph Maese waved his fists and cried out in protest.

“I don’t want to go home,” he said. “I want to stay here longer!”