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Photo courtesy of the UniCamp archives

a week at unicamp has lifelong impact

Marking 70 years of sharing the joy of camping

BY CYNTHIA LEE
UCLA Today Staff

In 1936, UCLA student Jim Lash struggled to describe the experience of being the head counselor for boys at UniCamp, UCLA’s then two-year-old residential summer camp in the San Bernardino Mountains for youths from low-income families.

After working with 48 young campers from all over Los Angeles, Lash wrote, “You cannot know how I feel until you have been there and felt it yourself. ... You have to see the genuine affection between the counselors and their groups,and the hard work of the counselors to help these kids grow right. You have to look at some of the kids and say to yourself, ‘What can there be ahead for them in life? Where can they fit? What can I do to help them find a place?’ ”

Seven decades after UniCamp was founded in 1934 by 11 UCLA students, these same sentiments are echoed by many current UCLA students who, as volunteer UniCamp counselors, take youngsters from crowded city neighborhoods on their first forest hike and teach them their first campfire song. The bond with campers that Lash discovered has been extended through the years in session after session amid mountains, pine trees and sleeping shelters open to the sky.

Jason Liou first experienced it as a counselor four years ago. “The connection I was able to make with them was just incredible,” he said. “I still talk to kids from that first camp. One of them is applying to college right now.”

Photo courtesy of the UniCamp archives

That magical bond has held UniCamp together through World War II, financial hardship and threats of closure, said Wally “Pops” Wirick, UniCamp’s executive director. When the U.S. Forest Service, owner of the land on which the campsite sat, threatened to remove cabins along the Santa Ana River in the ’60s, students staged a protest march to City Hall that saved the campsite from the bulldozer.

UniCamp also has survived a separation from its parent organization, the University Religious Conference, to grow up on its own. It was able to bounce back after the 53-year run of Mardi Gras, its largest annual fundraiser, sadly ended in 1996.

Each spring, nearly 350 UCLA students, who serve as counselors, fundraisers, year-round mentors and, later, loyal camp alumni, return or sign on for the first time to keep the camp going. Its alumni counselors have included James LuValle and State Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Los Angeles).

“Without their excitement and their energy, we wouldn’t have made it,” said Wirick. Each year, he and Anthony Garcia, UniCamp’s community/university relations officer, hear former campers, like retired Los Angeles County Judge Ray Cardenas, reminisce about that memorable week in the mountains that altered their lives and raised their educational aspirations.

Photo courtesy of the UniCamp archives

This year, on an 11-acre campground two miles from the original campsite, UniCamp, UCLA students’ official charity, will run seven summer sessions, each attended by 120 campers recommended by Boys and Girls Clubs, afterschool enrichment programs, youth guidance centers and foster family services.

Directing its programs will be Liou, who became a UniCamp staffer after graduating from UCLA, and fellow graduate Rex Liu.

“Since I got so much out of my camp experience, I wanted to give other students a chance to realize they can make an impact on these kids too,” Liou said.