When Summer Camp Offers Hope and Redemption

The memory pains her.

When Stephanie Kwong was fifteen, she and her mother walked by a Lancome counter at a local mall. A luxurious-looking box of Tresor perfume caught her eye.

“I want it,” Kwong told her mother, who had been abandoned by her own parents in China at age five, and as a divorced mother of two, worked hard and long to scrape together enough money for the family.

“Let’s walk around the mall, and if you still want it later, we can get it,” said Kwong’s mother.

Kwong wanted the $45 perfume at the end of their stroll, and her mother bought it for her. It was only later that Kwong found out her own mother could only dream of such perfume—if she wanted perfume for herself, she walked around to various counters and asked for samples. She made only $2,000 each month as a technician in a blood bank, and there was nothing to spare. Except when it came to her children.

“She was such a rock and didn’t want to take away from our childhood, or let us feel the brunt of the divorce,” said Kwong, now twenty-nine and a Los Angeles resident.

Her mother, who had to teach herself how to love and be loved, is Kwong’s hero (“I know it’s such a cliché,” Kwong told me) and has undoubtedly fueled Kwong’s mission to improve the world. Kwong is concentrating much of her philanthropic energy these days on the Royal Family Kids’ Camps Inc. (RFKC), a one-week summer camp for abused and neglected children.

According to RFKC, each year, more than 300 million American children are reported as abused. The nonprofit has hundreds of camps in the United States and fourteen outside the country—in Australia, South Africa, Singapore, Philippines and Kenya—and is staffed and sponsored by local churches. The campers are usually victims of abuse, and most often come from out-of-home foster placements.

Kwong said she was saddled with two of the most difficult children at the camp her first summer. She had recently gone through difficulties in her own life—both of her grandfathers died, she had relationship troubles, and an uncertain career—but she immersed herself in the world of the kids.

“My first year (as a volunteer at RKFC) was hard,” said Kwong. “But I shifted to the thought that this camp isn’t about me. It’s about the kids and what they need. When I made that shift, it made me feel so blessed for what I have and so angry about how unfair the foster system is.”

Kwong told me a story about an eleven-year-old boy who went to court with his biological father after camp ended. “The dad said, ‘No one wants you. You’re trash. You’re never going anywhere,’” said Kwong. “The kid was put in a group home, but he said, ‘It’s okay, because I have the memories from camp.’”

Campers, in fact, receive Memory Bags, which include camp T-shirts, water bottles, picture albums, and even a Bible (though the founders, Wayne and Diane Tesch, make a special effort on their Web site to point out that their nonprofit does not proselytize). There is one adult for every two campers, and opportunities for former campers to come back as counselors.

It has been a perfect fit for Kwong, who grew up in the Bay area and went to Berkeley for college.