Teen discovers inner counselor

If it weren’t for camp, who knows what 18-year-old Svetlana Shekhtmeyster would be doing now. One thing is for sure, she wouldn’t be a summer camp counselor.

Six months after immigrating to the United States from Russia, Lana’s parents sent their shy 11-year-old daughter to a two-week summer camp in the foothills near Glendale. Lana had enjoyed the camps she attended in Russia, so they thought a U.S. camp would be a good place for her to practice English.

Over the last decade, more than 500 immigrant children from the former Soviet Union have attended Camp Max Straus with help from the Los Angeles Times Summer Camp Fund. This summer, more than children will be participating, said camp manager Dinah Weldon.

“For a lot of them, this is a good opportunity to become familiar with American culture. It helps them have a strong foundation to be able to go back into school,” she said.

Many of the immigrants are Jewish and learn about the camp, run by the Jewish Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Los Angeles, by word of mouth , Weldon said. Lana’s parents heard about the camp, which is open to children of all faiths, ethnicities and races, from local relatives.

The whirlwind of camp activities helped to draw the self-conscious girl out of her shell. She enjoyed camp so much that she returned the next year and then went on two High Sierra backpacking trips the organization offered for teens.

“I had been to camps in Russia. They are extremely different,” she said. “There was a lot of cleaning and swimming in a dirty river. I don’t remember that there were any activities, it was long -- like two months and you couldn’t write letters to your parents or call them.”

Talking to her now, it is hard to imagine the UC Berkeley student as an insecure kid. Laughing, she recalled how the American girls on a backpacking trip reacted to a Russian sunburn remedy: sour cream.

“There were a couple of girls who were also from Russia ... so we went to the store. But it was Fourth of July weekend and they were all out of sour cream, so we bought cottage cheese. It dried up [on our skin]. We had to sleep in a place where there were bears. None of the other girls would sleep in the tent with us because they thought we would attract the bears. We must have been a funny sight!”

In seven years, Lana has gone from a girl who spoke little English to being one of five junior counselors selected from 50 candidates. She wanted to return to camp as a counselor for other immigrant children “to help them out the way the counselors helped me out.”

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About 11,000 children will go to camp this summer thanks to the $1.4 million raised last year.

The annual fund-raising campaign is part of the Los Angeles Times Family Fund, a fund of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, which this year will match the first $1 million in contributions at 50 cents on the dollar. Donations are tax-deductible. For more information, call (213) 237-5771. To make credit card donations, visit www.latimes.com /summercamp. To send checks mail to: Los Angeles Times Summer Camp Campaign, File #56984, Los Angeles, CA 90074-6984. Do not send cash. Unless requested otherwise, gifts of $25 or more will be acknowledged in The Times.