Island trek to new confidence

For Gage Piszczek, this summer at camp meant a lot of firsts, but one particular moment has become a golden memory: his first-ever slow dance with a girl.

Gage, who is 13 and lives with his mother and grandmother in Orange, could see the difference in himself after just one week at YMCA’s Camp Fox on Catalina Island.

“I was very shy at first, and after that, I really came out of myself,” Gage said.

His mom, Phyllis Piszczek, a part-time clerical worker, found out about the camp through the local YMCA in Anaheim.

“Gage had never been to any island,” she said. “Everything he did there was his first experience ever doing it.”

About 130 kids, ages 13 to 18, attend YMCA’s Camp Fox for a week session throughout the summer.

Many of them are from low-income families, and for them in particular, “It’s an amazing opportunity,” said Javier Gonzalez, teen program director at the Anaheim YMCA. “A lot of them kind of live in this bubble -- they really know their neighborhood, schools, and that’s it. . . . To truck across the ocean on a boat to go to an island is an amazing experience for them.”

Once at camp, the teens participate in activities, including snorkeling, kayaking and tubing. In the evenings, there are a nightly campfire and a few themed dances throughout the week.

It was during the “holiday” dance that Gage worked up the courage to ask a girl to dance. When he came home, he was so proud he told his mom.

“I told him, ‘You’re not a man yet,’ ” his mother said. “But he’s growing up!”

Campers share cabins based on their age and interact with other young people with whom they might never have crossed paths.

“A lot of the kids end up saying, ‘I probably would have never have talked to these kids,’ ” said Gonzalez. “It really stretches across the fabric of the socioeconomic strata.”

Besides making new friends, dancing and fishing, Gage also joined the YMCA Rag program at camp, a lifelong initiative that helps members set goals for themselves. “The rag is an outward symbol of an inward goal,” Gonzalez said.

Each camper chose three words representing a theme relating to their goals in life. Gage’s words: “Everyone can change.”

And change he did. Before camp, Gage didn’t know what he wanted to be when he grew up. But after the experience, he decided he wants to become an ocean biologist.

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