Camper is now ready to counsel

Though Christine Valdivias has headed back to the all-girls Camp Mariastella for the last several summers, this year it will be something new -- something of a rite of passage -- since she has been chosen to return as a counselor-in-training.

For three weeks, Christine, 14, will work with younger campers and learn CPR and first-aid so she will be fully prepared to be a counselor next summer. She has already learned a few tricks of the trade.

“You’ve got to have enthusiasm and get the kids to be open to trying new things,” said Christine, who lives in Pomona with her parents and two sisters. “Being away from home, the kids are more willing to meet new people.”

About 120 girls, ages 7 to 15, attend one of six summer sessions at Camp Mariastella, which was founded in 1941 by the Sisters of Social Service. The camp is located on more than 200 acres of pine and oak forest in the San Gabriel Mountains.

Campers, 95% of whom come from low-income and at-risk backgrounds, participate in sports and recreational activities and learn “outdoor living skills,” including fire building and outdoor cooking.

They also attend diversity workshops, where they learn about cultural differences through discussions with one another.

“We cross all the barriers,” said Jennifer Gaeta, executive director of Mariastella. She believes the girls open up more than they would if the camp were coed.

“One of the reasons we do so well is that all of those inhibitions can be left behind,” Gaeta said. “We really make it even.”

The younger girls also find role models in the older campers and the counselors-in-training, whom they can come to with problems.

“For the little girls, it helps them to have positive role models,” Gaeta said. “They really experience their ups and downs together.”

One special bonding experience during the week is a night sleeping under the stars.

Christine particularly looks forward to the sounds of nature, which remain endlessly new and surprising year after year.

“When you’re sleeping, sometimes you hear coyotes and sometimes it’s just silent -- and it’s great.”

Next year, when Christine heads back as a counselor, she hopes to help her campers find that sense of peace and refuge at camp.

Thanks to the $1.7 million raised last year by the Los Angeles Times Summer Camp Campaign, about 8,000 children will go to camp in Southern California this summer.

The Los Angeles Times Family Fund is a fund of the McCormick Foundation, which matches all donations at 50 cents on the dollar.

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nicole.loomis@latimes.com