A chance to play in nature, forget stresses
Nestor Vargas can’t remember how old he was when he was diagnosed with renal failure: either 12 or 13, he says. The disease has changed the 18-year-old’s life dramatically, with dialysis every night for 10 hours, mainly while he sleeps, medication to take at every meal and blood values, blood pressure and other vital statistics to monitor.
For the last five summers, Nestor, who was born in Mexico and now lives in Lynwood, has found a respite from his medical condition: a week at Teen Camp in Mammoth, sponsored by the National Kidney Foundation of Southern California in collaboration with the YMCA. Though he still has to have dialysis -- four times daily for 45 minutes each in a process the nursing staff performs manually to mimic the night-time procedure -- at camp he can go hiking, fishing and canoeing, amid spectacular surroundings.
“That’s what got me coming back,” says Nestor, who has graduated from high school and works for a company that provides precision sheet metal fabricating and welding to airports and other clients.
“The nature was breathtaking. The air was fresh. Every so often, I’d sit down and relax and view the scenery. All the stress is put aside for a while. The whole week I was up there, I wouldn’t think of the problems down here. I couldn’t wait for next year.”
Nestor, who hopes he can go back to camp this August now that he’s out of school -- Teen Camp participants range in age from 13 to 21 -- has learned about responsibility from following the camp routine. And, awaiting a kidney transplant, he’s found some of his trepidation allayed by fellow campers who’ve already had the operation. “I was scared,” he confesses. “But the kids said, ‘Nah, it’s only [bad] in the beginning. Don’t worry about it.’ ”
Nestor is one of more than 400,000 kids who have been able to attend camp through the Los Angeles Times Summer Camp Campaign, which began in 1954 and launches its 2007 effort today. More than 8,000 underprivileged children from 60 organizations, including those dealing with cancer, HIV and other medical conditions, 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. More than $30 million has been raised since the campaign’s inception.
Kidney patients are selected for camp after completing a detailed application, including a medical portion that is 12 pages long, to determine if they are healthy enough to attend. In Mammoth, a doctor and four nurses are on hand.
“They’re with kids like themselves, and they’re also with the healthy YMCA kids,” says Barbara Gales, a camp R.N. who does research the rest of the year with the director of pediatric dialysis at UCLA. “I’ll see our kids flashing their [dialysis] tubes. The others will say, ‘Can I watch?’ It makes me feel good that I can educate those kids.”
Renal patients want to be regular teens, but their lifestyle and social skills can be severely crimped by the need to be home at night for dialysis, Gales notes. Camp helps alleviate shyness and social awkwardness, with its opportunities to bond over sports, exploring and outings to local stores. And the nurses provide more than medical services: “We get a lot of questions about sex,” Gales says. “You’d be surprised how many think they can’t get pregnant or get someone pregnant when they’re on dialysis.”
Summer camp provides a different kind of break for Victorville cousins Kendra Cooley, 9, and John Grimm, 13: time away from the tumult of a household of nine kids, one grandmother and the couple -- dad and stepmother to some, uncle and aunt to others -- who look after everyone. Some of their siblings and cousins did accompany Kendra and John last year for their first time at Camp Nawakwa at Jenks Lake in the San Bernardino National Forest, but, says John, “It was peaceful. I got away from all the noise at the house. I was relaxed most of the time. It was pretty cool.”
The two and their family members will be returning for five days this July to the camp, among 66 kids ages 7 to 14, plus 16-year-old counselors-in-training, attending under the auspices of the High Desert Relative Caregivers. The Victorville organization provides resources and support for adults raising family members who aren’t their own sons and daughters; Campfire USA’s Mt. San Antonio region administers the camp.
“We get a lot of grandparents and aunts and uncles as caregivers,” says Kathy Brown, executive director of Relative Caregivers. “Their finances are limited -- they may be disabled or on Social Security. No way could they afford to send these kids to camp.” The organization supplies each camper with a sleeping bag, overnight bag and disposable camera.
“A lot of the kids are from drug and alcohol homes,” she adds. “They’ve been psychologically or emotionally abused. Most are in counseling. For many, camp is a whole new world out there that they never knew existed.”
Not so for Kendra: She’d previously been to a science camp. At Camp Nawakwa, she says, “I liked rock climbing a lot. I had fun swimming. I liked watching the clouds go by.” School was easier when she went back: “The counselors taught us how to multiply fractions. And we studied animals in social studies. At camp I saw deer and blue jays and a skunk, and I petted a squirrel!”
Most of all, she says, “I liked the arts that we did -- making books and maracas. I loved playing the maracas. It was fun!”
Campaign donations are tax-deductible. For more information, call (213) 237-5771. To make donations by credit card, go to latimes.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.