A great place to just be a kid again
Peter and Adrian Saldana were never really able to just be kids. They were thrust into the world of adult reality when their mother abandoned the boys -- Peter, then 7, and Adrian, then 3 -- and their father nearly eight years ago.
So when the brothers stepped off the bus in Santa Barbara this summer at the Circle V Ranch Camp, they were ready to get down and dirty and embrace some of the fun they’d missed out on in their early youth.
“You get to learn about the wildlife, and it’s peaceful over there. It really takes things off your mind, like any worries you have,” Peter says of the camp, where he spent his second summer this year.
Peter, 14, and Adrian, 11, share a Van Nuys guesthouse with their father, Victor Saldana, who has a job driving children to school.
“It’s really helpful, just like, if you have lots of stress from your parents or from school or friendships,” continues Peter, a ninth-grader. “Then you can just go to camp and chill out, make new friends and talk to the counselors about it. They ask you how you’re doing and you tell them how you feel.”
Circle V Ranch Camp offers eight six-day sessions that average about 130 children and teens per week. Tucked in the back country of Santa Barbara, Circle V allows its campers a vast amount of autonomy over their schedules. Kids can spend most of their time at archery, studying the Santa Ynez Native Americans or even in yoga class.
“It was really great there,” says Adrian, a sixth-grader. “They teach us a whole bunch of things. In chapel they had a skit one morning about a girl who danced differently than everyone else and then they asked us the theme of the story. I said it was about giving people second chances and not judging them. I’ll remember that.”
“Our program revolves around core values like respect and teamwork, and. . . we are trying to make a difference in our kids’ self-esteem,” explains camp director Ricardo Garcia.
Peter and Adrian are attending camp through funding from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Council of Los Angeles. And with nearly 98% of the children at Circle V attending the program on similar scholarships, Garcia says, those from even the roughest backgrounds are able to profit from the experience.
“When the kids arrive at Circle V, it’s a very egalitarian society because everybody’s on equal financial ground. No one has any history here to be judged by, so it’s really about what they make of their week at camp and how they form their memories.”
“It’s a positive thing for my kids to be interacting with other kids and become more independent than they already are,” Victor Saldana says. “It’s been a challenge for me to raise my boys by myself. I recently had a stroke and almost lost my job and my apartment. But we are all very close, and I hope that if they learn the right stuff and good morals like they do at camp, they will be successful.”
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul Council of Los Angeles is one of 60 organizations receiving financial support this year through the Los Angeles Times Summer Camp Campaign. More than 8,000 underprivileged children will go to camp this summer, thanks to $1.5 million raised last year. The annual fundraising campaign is part of the Los Angeles Times Family 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 donations by credit card, go to la times.com/summercamp. To send checks, use the attached coupon. Do not send cash. Unless requested otherwise, gifts of $50 or more will be acknowledged in The Times.
