 | Royce Hughes | |
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 From Camp to College:
A YES Success Story
Royce Hughes is a young man with a future, headed off to college on a football scholarship he earned playing ball at the local community college. But, what his new schoolmates and teachers probably don’t know is ‘how steep the hill was’ that he had to climb just to find the beginning of his path to success.
We met up with Royce, six years after he attended his first summer at camp with YES, to find out what the experience meant to him and how he came to be the first in his family to attend a four year university.
Like many youngsters who grow up in Richmond, California, Royce was raised by a single mother. Royce never knew his father. When he was in junior high, his south Richmond neighborhood started getting rougher; there were shootings and killings and some of them happened just outside his house.
Asked how he felt during that time, Royce said, “I was really worried. Not a lot of people in my neighborhood make it to 19 or 20, so I just wanted to leave and get as far from there as possible.”
He attended public school and hung out with friends whose circumstances weren’t that different from his own. In Royce’s own words,
“I have been here all 19 years, and I see young kids who grow up the wrong way. I had a lot of troubles and stuff like that but then being at camp, it really changed my life. So I tried to take what I learned at camp and bring it back home, to the streets.”
Away at Camp for the First Time
“I first started going to camp my freshman year of high school; I believe I was 13 years old. My first time at camp, I was like any typical kid, I wasn’t used to being away from home. So, it was kind of rough at first, but more into the week I started to come around, and I started having fun.”
“I met a lot of new people that I thought I would never meet before ... [there were] cool new games and the counselors were good. I’d never been away from home for like more than a week, so I think that was pretty much a good thing.”
Royce found out about camp from his friend Eric, a student at Kennedy High School. In the summer of 2003, he decided to try it. They went to camp together and had so much fun that they called YES founder, and then-director, Diane Mintz when they got home, to see if they could go again.
As it turned out, there were no camp openings at the next session, but there were positions for Campers In Leadership Training (CILT), a two-week long commitment that provided training and mentored youth as counselor assistants.
We Asked Royce
What CILT Was All About
“Being a CILT was very fun and very different than being a camper and whatnot because the whole thing about the CILT program was to learn about leadership and to be in a situation like a counselor.”
As it turned out, Royce was a natural. He described himself as more of a follower when he was younger. But, the CILT program gave him confidence and new skills, and best of all it gave him the actual experience of leadership.
The first week of CILT is all about training, but by week two, Royce was in a cabin helping a counselor greet the kids who had arrived at camp from his very neighborhood. And, because their backgrounds were similar, he was able to relate and help the younger kids adjust to their new surroundings.
“Once I got back home and told kids about camp, they really wanted to go next year ... a lot of kids, from the stories I told them, said, “oh that sounds fun, maybe I should think about going to camp next year.”
The difficult part, it turned out, was coming back home. “After camp was all over I was sad ... usually during the summer back home we’re running around being bad, to be completely honest, not doing anything.”
Knowing Royce now, it’s hard to believe that he could really have been “bad.” But, as one might imagine, hanging around other kids with nothing to do all summer long, trouble sometimes just happens.
Prospects for the Future
“Before camp I was a knuckle head in school. Going back to school after camp, it really changed me because all the kids I am around at camp, they’re doing good in school and stuff like that. So, I had to sit back and think about it. I didn’t want to be like one of the bad kids, even though I come from a bad neighborhood or a bad place, well not necessarily a bad place, somewhere where it is rough.”
“I really improved by my 10th grade year. I knew what was up and I wanted to graduate high school. Most kids easily drop out and I didn’t want to be one of those statistics. I just worked hard and stayed focused and stayed out of trouble as much as I could.”
Royce came back to camp in 2004 to be a CILT and was preparing to be a counselor in 2008, but his football practice schedule conflicted with camp dates and it didn’t work out. But this summer, Royce contacted Steve Schilling, a former counselor and mentor who is the current camp director at YMCA Camp Loma Mar. Steve was happy to hear from Royce and made arrangements for him to come down as a volunteer to help out other CILTs and counselors. “When he expressed his interest in coming back to camp to volunteer, I jumped at the opportunity,” stated Schilling. Royce provides a role model for kids who grow up in less than ideal circumstances and shows them what they can become. I wish I had more leaders like Royce on my staff.”
Beginning this fall, Royce has embarked on a new journey. He has already moved to Montgomery, Alabama where he received a scholarship to attend Faulkner University. Royce credits his family and friends for supporting him and helping him to stay on a course leading to success.
“My goal is to get an education. I want to major in criminal justice, hopefully become a corrections officer or one day become a cop and come back to my community and help out around here.”
Thinking about Camp?
If you are thinking about going to camp, or if you’re a parent thinking about sending your child to camp, maybe Royce’s story will influence your decision. He has some final words of advice for anyone worried about leaving home for the first time.
“The advice I would give, you probably won’t like because you haven’t been away from home and you’re probably not used to being away from home, but just stick it out and you will have fun. It’s a new experience, it is something new that you haven’t done before, you’ll meet a lot of cool people throughout camp and camp really can change your life -- if you let it.”
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YES Events in 2009
2010 Day Long Regional Park Outings:
Volunteers needed for March 20, June 5 & Novemeber 13.
2010 Spring Family Camps:
April 23-25 Peres Elementary
May 7-9 Verde Elementary
Now accepting volunteer applications.
2010 Summer Camp:
Registration begins Tuesday, April 6 at 2 pm in the YES office.
Click here for more details.
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