Camp Opens Eyes of Have-Nots, Have-Lots

All the rock wall climbing, lanyard weaving and campfire singing at Camp Harmony in Malibu would have been a good enough escape for 200 campers bused in from shelters for the homeless.

And the community service points earned by about 80 Gap-wearing teenagers who volunteered as camp counselors was a fair enough reward.

But something else happened on the shady campground nestled on a hill beside the Pacific Ocean. In the kids’ own words, their eyes were opened. Their hearts and minds were changed.

Tears blurred the once-clear dividing lines of age and class in a den of seven campers and three teen counselors during a candle-lighting ceremony on a recent Sunday evening, their final night together at camp.

Volunteer counselor and high school junior Graham Littlefield, a self-described “manly man” with Gucci shades, told his campers, “Material things are not what matters. We may have different circumstance but, with the right attitude, you can do anything you want. You can have happiness.”

Abraham Garcia, a weeping 11-year-old in donated play clothes, thanked Graham, who attends the private Windward School, for taking the boys swimming and making them laugh. Abraham moved out of a Sun Valley shelter just after leaving camp last year.

Sleep-away summer camps like this one are, for the most part, getaways for the haves and have-lots. But Camp Harmony took its campers from Los Angeles-area shelters or after-school programs for severely impoverished youths from 7 to 11 years old.

Yasmeen Badillo, 9, said swimming was her favorite activity at first. Some of the kids never get into a pool until the five-day camp. Others live only miles away from Los Angeles County’s 79 miles of coastline but had never seen the ocean until the bus turned onto Pacific Coast Highway.

Yasmeen has lived in a shelter for the homeless for the three years she’s been going to the summer camp. Camp has given her a break from helping her mother care for her baby sister. It also has made her more interested in school because children may not return if they don’t keep up their grades.

“I am going to work hard on my times tables when I go back to school,” Yasmeen said. “My dad told me math is going to be harder in the fourth grade, and I want to come back. So, I’m working on it.”

For the mostly college-prep students who come from the Westside and San Fernando Valley to volunteer, the five-day camp offered an exhausting but welcome departure from what might have been a self-centered summer.

“Honestly, we’re all well off and used to making our own schedules and not worrying about someone else,” said Katie Dewitt, a junior at Harvard-Westlake High School. “This is so different. My days are consumed with the campers and putting them first. It’s not what we’re used to, but it’s good for me.”

Beyond the s’moresey goodness of camp relationships, the younger kids walked away with a new wardrobe for school. Oprah Winfrey donated $100,000 through her Oprah’s Angel Network, and Land’s End threw in a duffle bag full of clothing for each camper.

“A lot of the campers come from loving families, but going to the beach or playing golf is just not in the scope of things they do,” said Robin Segal, who founded Camp Harmony 13 years ago and is among 90 adult volunteers. “Many of them come from very loving homes with very limited means. They need to see what else is out there. And the teenagers need to see how the other half lives.”

Most of the camp’s $100,000 budget comes from donations. Artists, musicians, even a food stylist share their expertise.

Camp ended Monday and, as they headed back to their regular lives, campers and counselors said they would take home a new perspective.

Yasmeen learned that appearances and material things really don’t matter when it comes to friends. The counselors have more clothes, and nicer clothes, than she does, but Yasmeen and the counselors had a great time together. She said she would keep that in mind when she returned to the shelter with her new outfits.

The other children may not have clothes as fine as hers, but that won’t lessen them in her eyes. “They will still be my friends,” Yasmeen said. “And maybe they will come to camp next year.”

Graham, the counselor, has begun a journal that recaps his camp experience, hoping to use it as part of his application to be a counselor next year.

“It may take a while for me to soak in how much I might have affected one of these young kids’ lives,” he said. “I’m also reflecting on how much they changed my life and how much better off I am for meeting them.”