Children can let down their defenses by the sea

Daiveon Roberts is an imaginative 9-year-old who wants to be a basketball player or a doctor and get his master’s degree at a Cal State campus or USC. For most of his life, his mother has been in recovery from a crack cocaine addiction that landed her in prison in 2000. She spent six months away from him in Chowchilla and Norco prisons, then entered an Oakland drug treatment program that allowed him to live with her.

Upon his mom’s release in 2002, the two moved to Walden House, an El Monte parolee transitional facility, and they now live in a Lincoln Heights apartment provided by A Community of Friends, an agency that offers housing and support services for the homeless and mentally ill. After holding a minimum wage job for two years, his mother found work at Walden House as a driver. Sober for almost seven years, she’s been promoted twice and just started a position as community services coordinator.

Daiveon’s basketball dream took wing last summer when he spent five days at Camp Harmony. The Malibu facility is sponsored by United in Harmony, an organization that makes it possible for homeless and other underprivileged kids to enjoy fun and friendship by the ocean.

“We played basketball there,” Daiveon says proudly, “and I was good.” He also learned outdoor survival skills and enjoyed hiking, where he could survey the ocean vistas. “I liked the beach and the dolphins,” he reports. “And I liked it when we saw the birds flying and laying their eggs. They were robins, and their eggs were blue. I touched the egg!”

He thought about the time his mom was away, years earlier, and had missed him. “It kind of helped,” he says. And he put together a memory book of his friends’ photos and numbers.

“I had fun,” he says. “I felt sad when I left, because I wasn’t going to see them anymore.”

Daiveon will be returning to Camp Harmony this August. “He’s always been a mellow kid, and he was really excited about this,” says his mother, Caryl Scott. “He really enjoyed himself, and he can’t wait to go back.”

In all, 290 children ages 7 through 11 will enjoy the opportunity, United in Harmony founder and executive director Robin Segal says, “to feel safe and build self-esteem. Some of these kids have never seen the ocean before. And there’s a 2-to-1 camper-counselor ratio, which promotes a bond. They get the sense that people care about them and want them to do well. By the end of camp, they’ve let down their defenses.”

United in Harmony is one of 60 organizations receiving financial support this year through the Los Angeles Times Summer Camp Campaign. More than 8,000 underprivileged children will go to camp this summer thanks to $1.5 million raised last year. The annual fundraising campaign is part of the Los Angeles Times Family Fund of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, which this year will match the first $1.1 million in contributions at 50 cents on the dollar.

Donations are tax-deductible. For more information, call (213) 237-5771. To donate by credit card, go to latimes.com/summercamp. To send checks, use the attached coupon. Do not send cash. Unless requested otherwise, gifts of $50 or more will be acknowledged in The Times.