Kids can shine at Camp Nawakwa
Though Vaniece Cardenas gets nervous when talking about going to camp for the first time this summer, as an aspiring actress she knows it’s an opportunity to participate in drama activities and perform skits with other campers.
“It’s both scary and exciting,” said Vaniece, who is 10 and lives in San Bernardino. “I’ve been camping before, but not with a lot people.”
Though she says she sometimes gets stage fright, Vaniece hopes to one day become a performer.
For five days this August, Vaniece will join about 130 campers, ages 7 to 16, at Camp Nawakwa in the San Bernardino Mountains.
Forty children from Community Action Partnership of San Bernardino County, including Vaniece, are sponsored to go to the camp. The agency, which provides transitional housing and program assistance for low-income families, also provides camping gear for children, said program coordinator Renee Wilson.
“It gives them an opportunity to meet friends, but it also gives them self-confidence, especially since sometimes there’s children that are an only child or have no opportunity to be outside the city,” Wilson said.
Vaniece’s mom, Marlita Riley, who lives with her five children in transitional housing, says her daughter deserves to get away: As the oldest sib- ling, Vaniece helps her mom take care of her brothers and sisters.
“She helps me out a whole lot with my younger daughter,” said Riley, a certified nursing assistant. “This is like a challenge for her to go off for four days.”
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.
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