Kids want to go to camp, but they need financial help

Eight-year-old Elizabeth's favorite activities at summer camp in the mountains last year were rock climbing, ziplining — and making new friends.

It was her first camp and her first time away from home.

“It was one of the best times of my entire life,” she told counselors at the YMCA of Greater Long Beach. Now comes the hard part. Elizabeth would like nothing better than to return to the Y's Camp Oakes in the San Bernardino Mountains this summer, but her chances look bleak unless her family gets financial help.

“I so wish I could go back,” she said, “but our family just doesn't have enough

money to send me.”

That's where you, Press-Telegram readers, come in.

We have launched the Press-Telegram's 23rd annual Send-a-Kid-toCamp fund campaign, asking readers for donations to help send kids like Elizabeth to mountain camps operated by the Big 5 youth groups: YMCA of Greater Long Beach, Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach, Camp Fire Angeles, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

The program was started in 1999 by Tom Hennessy, the late Press-Telegram columnist, and Jean Bixby Smith, chair emeritus of the Long Beach Community Foundation, which has partnered with the news organization for the fund drive ever since.

We invite you to make a contribution this year and make a child's dream come true. Keep in mind that it takes $500, on the average, to send one youngster to one week at a mountain camp to enjoy the great outdoors.

Thank you in advance for making a difference in the lives of financially inneed kids like Elizabeth.