Maria Alarcon had a difficult childhood, growing up poor in Central Los Angeles in the middle of the Great Depression in the 1930s.
“We were very, very poor,” she said. “My father was an immigrant from Mexico. We had very little.”
Then a life-changing event happened to Maria.
“Somehow, through my school, when I was 11 in 1942, I spent a week in a summer camp in the mountains. I think it was Camp Valyer in the San Gabriel Mountains. It was the most wonderful experience of my young life.”
Because of that experience, Alarcon has been donating to the Press-Telegram’s Send-a-Kid-to-Camp fund. The Press-Telegram, as well as its weekly sister publication, the Grunion Gazette, is once again partnering with the Long Beach Community Foundation for the 27th year in sending kids to camps in nearby mountains.
Press-Telegram columnist Rich Archbold speaking to kids at Camp Oakes about their experience at the summer camp on Wednesday, July 2, 2025. (Photo by Christina Merino, Press-Telegram/SCNG)
Maria Alarcon. (Photo courtesy of Karen Butler)
Rich Archbold, the Press-Telegram’s public editor and columnist, was gifted a Scouts shirt that read “We Sent Thousands of Kids to Camp,” across the back in honor of his efforts to help raise funds for the annual Send-a-Kid-to-Camp campaign, at Phil Trani’s Restaurant in Long Beach on Thursday, July 25, 2024. (Photo by Christina Merino, Press-Telegram/SCNG)
Press-Telegram columnist Rich Archbold speaks to kids at Camp Oakes in Big Bear on Wednesday, Aug. 10. (Photo by Christina Merino, Press-Telegram/SCNG)
The 2024 Send-a-Kid-to-Camp fundraising campaign surpassed expectations and set a new record of $155,000 in donations. These kids at the Boys & Girls Clubs’ Eastman/Fairfield Center are just some of the many that will benefit, in Long Beach on Thursday, June 27, 2024.
Adults L-R Don Rodriguez, CEO Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach, Rich Archbold, public editor, columnist for the Press-Telegram, Frank Newell, chair of the Long Beach Community Foundation board, and Marcelle Epley, President & CEO of the Long Beach Community Foundation. (Photo by Brittany M. Solo Press-Telegram/SCNG)
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Press-Telegram columnist Rich Archbold speaking to kids at Camp Oakes about their experience at the summer camp on Wednesday, July 2, 2025. (Photo by Christina Merino, Press-Telegram/SCNG)
Our generous readers, including Alarcon, have opened their wallets and purses to help youngsters from low-income families enjoy a week at a mountain camp run by one of the “Big Five” youth organizations: the Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach, YMCA of Greater Long Beach, Camp Fire Long Beach, Girls Scouts and Boy Scouts, now known as Scouting America.
In a letter to the Press-Telegram with her camp donation in 2015, Alarcon said she still remembered a camp counselor telling her in 1942: “You always wake up smiling.” Alarcon said, “I’ll always remember that. It’s like a dream.”
Alarcon wrote in her letter, “It makes me feel good every time I make a donation. Even though the amount is relatively small I feel I am helping another youngster the way I was helped.”
That’s what she wrote in 2015 when she was 84. Alarcon wrote another letter with another donation this year.
In her current letter, she wrote, “Would you believe it? I am 95 now, and I continue to believe in helping our young (er) generation in this troubled world we now live in.”
In checking donations to the camp fund, I learned that Alarcon gave more than 40 donations to the fund in the past 13 years.
I called Alarcon on the phone, and she sounded very excited about her donation this year.
“I just love helping these youngsters,” she said. “I still remember how much camp helped me. It’s something I will never forget.”
She said her health was good. “Except I do have a habit of falling down,” she added with a laugh.
Alarcon worked in the payroll department for the city of Long Beach before she retired. Her brother, Arthur L. Alarcon was the first Latino appointed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A judge for more than 50 years, he died in 2015. He was 89.
We are asking readers again this year for donations to send kids to a week in a camp in the mountains. Remember that, like almost everything else, that cost keeps increasing. The average cost of sending one child to one week at a camp is $600.
“But any donation, whether large or small or something in between, is very helpful in sending kids to camp,” said Tara Sievers, Donor and Community Relations Manager at the Community Foundation.
We invite you to make whatever donation you can to our campaign this year–and make a kid’s dream come true like it did for Maria Alarcon. We thank you in advance for making a difference in the lives of so many deserving youngsters.
HOW TO DONATE
Online: Donations with a credit card via the Long Beach Community Foundation’s website are preferred. Go to longbeachcf.org. The Long Beach Community Foundation Tax ID# is EIN-20-5054010.
Mail: Send a check with “Send-a-Kid-to-Camp” in the memo, payable to Long Beach Community Foundation, 1 World Trade Center, 8th Floor, Long Beach, CA 90831.
Send a Kid to Camp – 2026Donors through 5/6/26Campaign Total: $27,619.95
–Maria Alarcon–Robert and Jeannie Alban–Anonymous–Katie Archbold Andrs–Caroline Arthur–David and Debra Ball–Vincent Basile–Donald Baughman–Paula Bawden–Robert Bourget in memory of Ruth King Richardson–Dianne and Barry Bradfield–Penny Brocksen–Linda Bryan-Thompson–Terry and Susan Buckley–Gayle Cardon–Vivian Chen–Cheryl Clark in memory of her mom, Florence Glaser–Jewel Cowart–Tom Daellenbach–Norma Dallman–Bonnie Daugherty–Anonymous–Ruth Davis–Joan and Gil Delgado in memory of Tom Hennessey
–Susan Dewar–Melanie Dietz–Glenn and Margo Dobbs–George Downer and Jan Green in memory of The Doho–Ruth Ann Edwall–Brian Fantin in honor of Jon Ronald Fantin–Daphne Fear–Polly Foncannon–Larry and Frances Fowler–Claude and Nancy Friedmann–Susan Garcia–Fred, Mike and Jan Gaschen–Helen Gates–Evangeline Gatling–Diane Gleason–Kate Griffin–Bernard and Susan Haight–Anonymous–Rose Hamilton in memory of Charles Hamilton–Anonymous–James and Sue Hiatt–Jean Hoffman–Barry and Jan Jackson–June-Ann Jaeke–The Janquart Family–Anna Joyce–Ed and Jill Copelin–Christopher Kennedy–Michael Keohane–Elizabeth Kier–Bryan Lane–Thomas Lane–James and Julie Lehenbauer–Anonymous–Barbara and Manuel Loureiro–Elizabeth Lucas–In memory of Liz Kier–Alan and Eileen Manack–Kay Mantoen–Rob and Caroline Martin–Anna Martinez–Dawn McKenna–Jonathan McMullen–Judy McNulty-Black
–G.F. McVey–Anonymous–John and Betsy Metcalfe–CD and Art Milas–Lois Miller in memory of Peg Merrill–Jaimie and Craig Mock–Vickie Mortensen–Tommy Nerman in memory of Bill and Frances Keys–Sally and Ed Nilsen–Gene Novotny–James and Jane Nowell–Kathleen O’Connell–Steven Page–Karole Pando–Jerilynn Peterson–Evelyn and John Pohlmann–Patricia Pollman–Tamara Presley–Johna Lyn and Nelson Reynolds–Rian and Mary Robison–Donna Rogahn in memory of Harold Omel–Amy Royle–Victor and Iris Ruiz–Marcia Scharfen–Janice Schlesinger–Mimi Scully in memory of Ron–Danny Shatwell–Joe Sheridan–Steve Shinn–Melanie Smothers–Virginia Spina–Elizabeth Stepan in honor of George J Stepan–Robert Stephens–Sandra Stolpe–Terrence and Alexandra Sullivan–John Sumpter in memory of Tom Pontac–Dorothy McGowan Thomas–Roberta Vernon–George and Leanne Voigt–Mike and Liz Vozzella–David and Kathy Walker in memory of Christopher–Jeffery Washington–Linda Watson Wheeler Family–Anonymous–Judy Ann Willis–John Winger in memory of Ann J Winger–Roger Working