Camper to counselor to college student

Just as she was about to enter eighth grade with all of her friends, Bonnie Mencos and her two sisters were uprooted from their Arcadia apartment when their parents moved to Palmdale. Bonnie despaired at her new school. She didn’t feel safe walking the half-mile from her mobile home to school. And she didn’t have any friends.

“I was the loser,” she said. “I ate my lunch in the bathroom. I was like, ‘That doesn’t happen to Bonnie!’ ”

Then things in Palmdale got much worse. Bonnie’s mother became ill and spent a week in the hospital. Bonnie’s alcoholic father, who had drifted in and out of the family for years, also became sick. He told the girls he had lung cancer. He left, never to be seen again.

Then the family found out that Bonnie’s mother’s illness was AIDS, apparently contracted from her husband, who had lied about his illness. She nearly died.

It was an awful year. So when Bonnie’s mom learned of an opportunity for her daughters to go to summer camp free the next year, she sent them, despite her tendency to be overprotective.

At the YMCA’s Camp Elk in Wrightwood, Bonnie said, she was quiet at first. A lot of the kids were from foster and group homes and had led really different lives than she had, she said. But toward the end of the two weeks, Bonnie said she got more comfortable and bonded with her fellow campers.

“I just opened up. I loved it,” she said. Campers started coming to her to confide and get counseling.

It was a turning point for her. For the next three years, Bonnie went back to Camp Elk -- first as a counselor in training, then as a camp staffer.

Last summer, as camp director for a week, she was responsible for 150 children.

Campers fell in love with Bonnie, who exudes warmth. One young girl, Andrea, whose mother had died a week before camp, sought Bonnie out to talk about her loss.

“I was like, in a way, I know how you feel, because my mom is being murdered day by day,” said Bonnie. “I said, ‘Mija, you need to realize that there’s people here that love you.... If you need someone to dance out here in the moonlight under the stars, I’ll dance with you.’ ”

Andrea called Bonnie her angel.

Bonnie, now 19, goes to East Los Angeles College and will transfer to Loyola Marymount University next spring. She wants to study psychology and get a master’s degree in marital and family art therapy.

Bonnie works with children at a YMCA after-school program in West Covina. As they look out the window, the kids scream “It’s Bonnie!” as she approaches the program’s trailer.

“I love kids.... I want to have six of my own, maybe adopt six,” said Bonnie. “I have so much love.”

About 10,000 underprivileged children will be able to go to camp this summer thanks to $1.6 million raised last year.

The annual fundraising campaign is part of the Los Angeles Times Family Fund, a fund of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, which this year will match the first $1.1 million in contributions at 50 cents on the dollar.

Donations are tax-deductible. For more information, call (213) 237-5771. To make a credit card donation, visit latimes.com/summercamp. To send checks, use the attached coupon. Do not send cash. Unless otherwise requested, gifts of $50 or more will be acknowledged in The Times.