Students lined Bruin Walk last week in a battle to fill enormous containers with coins, then spent the weekend camped out at the Sunset Canyon Recreation Center to raise funds to send nearly 1,000 children from low-income families to outdoor camp this summer.
These student volunteers will work at weeklong sessions at UniCamp this summer, acting as counselors, recreation specialists or student leaders for campers ages 10 to 17.
With the goal of raising $120,000 students engaged in “Penny Wars” last week and held a “Camp-a-Thon” from 8 a.m. on Saturday until noon on Sunday, after collecting sponsorships from friends and family.
Because UniCamp primarily serves children in the Los Angeles area at or below the poverty line or in foster care, the camp must be made affordable for the campers, said Jeff Lyu, a third-year political science student involved with UniCamp.
“We are a full-service, weeklong summer program, and at any other camp like ours, the cost is $600 to $800. But because of the population that we serve, we ask $75 from the families, rather than the full fee,” Lyu said.
The low cost of the program means that staff and volunteers have one central focus until the start of camp this summer: fundraising.
“The difference must be made up by student funding, by grants, by sponsors, things like that,” Lyu said, referring to the gap between what the children pay and what the camp costs.
Jason Liou, the director of program enhancement for UniCamp, said the cost of the camp, which runs from July to August, is about $700,000. Of this, student volunteers annually fundraise about $120,000.
This was a less daunting endeavor in the past, when campus events such as Spring Sing, the JazzReggae Festival and $2 films shown in Ackerman all donated their proceeds to UniCamp, Liou said. When those events started associating with their own charities and causes, UniCamp students had to approach the undertaking in creative ways, often combining bonding with raising money, as exemplified by the event at Sunset Canyon.
“Camp-a-Thon is along the lines of a Dance Marathon idea,” Lyu said. “We camp out so people will donate money to the organization.”
The campout goes beyond fundraising to provide valuable experience for the students involved.
Max Gow, a fourth-year political science student, said that Camp-a-Thon is structured like a day of camp in order to simulate the camp experience for new volunteers.
Gow said this year’s event raised about $68,000.
Another major fundraising effort took place on Bruin Walk last week, as UniCamp members wearing oversized signs and holding coin-filled water jugs engaged in “Penny Wars.”
The playful weeklong competition pitted volunteers from different sessions against each other. Teams earned points for every coin donated and lost points for dollar bills.
“At the end of the week, we count up all the money and coins, and whichever session comes out with the most points gets a pizza party or something along those lines,” Lyu said. “It’s friendly competition to motivate us to fundraise.”
The challenge of fundraising is diligently undertaken because for campers and students alike describe UniCamp as immensely rewarding. The program is meant to be an escape for campers; accordingly, student volunteers and campers must leave their old identities behind and choose their own camp names.
Lyu said the name tradition originated when one camper expressed her desire to be nicknamed “Smart.” She explained to her counselor that she chose that name since no one had ever called her that before.
“From then on, these nicknames have been used because it allows the campers to be whatever they want to be,” said Lyu, whose camp name is Gizmo. “It’s stories like this and so many others that make all of the fundraising worth it.”
Many student volunteers said they were motivated to fundraise because of the impact the camp has on the children involved.
“I think my favorite thing about camp is being able to be a role model to the kids, because I didn’t really have a role model when I was younger,” said Gow, nicknamed “Boost.”
“I’m a transfer student and I barely graduated high school, and I like to show them that if I can do it, they can do it,” he said.
Raisa Zaidi, a fourth-year political science student nicknamed “Awkward!,” said the results of the program are long-lasting.
“You don’t realize what a difference you can make in one week,” Zaidi said. “Randomly, even six or seven months after camp ends, a camper will call you and start talking to you, and you think, “˜Wow, this did make an impact.'”
The program’s effects are not limited to campers. Liou said the week at camp is often transformative for the student volunteers involved.
“What I find often happens is after student volunteers go through the program, they end up going into social work or education so they can work with underserved children,” Liou said. “So often this group is written off as the “˜bad kids’ and the “˜troubled kids,’ but being up at camp with them, students realize that these kids have so much to offer.”
For more information or to donate, visit www.unicamp.kintera.org/campathon.