Photo by Chuck Kirman / Star staff Ventura April 24, 2008: Local singer Lisa Houston performs at the Death by ChocolateÓ an evening of music, inspiration and chocolate at the fundraiser for Royal Family Kids´ Camp (RFKC) a summer camp for abused, abandoned, and neglected children in Foster care. The event was held at the DeWitt Community Life Center at Ventura Missionary Church.

No community is immune. Ventura County is like anywhere else; it may be a lovely place, but things like child abuse and neglect happen. Even here.

It is of particular importance for us to address such cheerless truths; it is here, in such generally peaceful places, that programs like the Royal Family Kids Camp can make a real difference — unifying and strengthening community solutions to insidious, often unspoken community problems, said Randy Martin, chief executive officer of Covenant Community Services Inc., a nonprofit organization that serves abused and neglected children.

"Ventura needs RFKC for the hundreds of foster children who benefit from the one-week experience of hope and love," he said.

Martin came from Bakersfield to Ventura Missionary Church one recent Thursday to speak at a local fundraiser for the summer camp that serves abused, abandoned and neglected children in foster care. The fundraiser, called "Death by Chocolate," was billed as an evening of music, inspiration and chocolate. It dished up all that, along with a lot of information.

Attendees learned that RFKC has an international network of camps, with local efforts serving Ventura, Oxnard and Santa Barbara.

The next camps are taking place in July.

"For confidentiality and the protection of the kids, we don't disclose the location of the camp in order to avoid having an estranged parent try to steal their child back while they're at camp," said Ken Klopman of Camarillo.

For seven years, Klopman, a senior officer with the Oxnard Police Department, and his wife, Lyz — along with dozens of other people from Ventura Missionary Church — have put on the specialized summer camps for youths.

The kids are all from the foster care system; even those who have been reunified with their parents and are no longer being monitored by Ventura County protective services continue to be invited back to camp year after year, Klopman said.

"We work together with County Children & Family Services, and it's the social workers who refer us to children, either birth families, extended families acting as caregivers, foster families, adoptive families, private foster care agencies or group homes," he said.

What goes on

Camp activities vary day to day. For example, youths might start with an early polar bear swim, followed by a family-style breakfast, then Breakfast Club — a time of singing, entertainment and affirmations with kids and staff.

Campers also engage in arts and crafts, swimming, campfires, talent shows, story time and the Spy Awards, in which they are recognized for positive behavior.

"The campers are always with a counselor or staff member who is constantly looking to catch campers' positive behavior and recognize them for it, or to find teachable moments," Klopman said.

Camps are once a year; many directors envision holding subsequent camps each summer, "but the issue is finding the money and all the volunteers it takes to do a week of camp," Klopman said. "Getting one camp done per church is challenging enough, but like probably everyone else in the Royal family, I have a hope that one day we will have so many people that want to be a part of this ministry that, rather than turn them away, we'll put on a second and even third camp."

Camps in Ventura and Oxnard serve about 32 kids; Santa Barbara serves about 24. "Worldwide, RFKCs will serve over 6,000 kids this year," Klopman said.

The need is fundamentally great. Martin spoke during the Ventura fundraiser about the tragedy of youths whose better option is to remain in foster care until they "age out" of the system without finding their "forever family" — and the hope for their future.

"RFKC provides hope by creating positive memories through the camp experience," said Martin, who started out as a camp counselor in 1995 and became a co-director with his wife, Kim, in 1997.

"RFKC builds resiliency in children who have been burned with cigarettes, beaten with hoses and locked in closets, and gives hope that life can and will be better," he said.

RFKC was founded in 1985 in Orange County, by Wayne and Diane Tesch. The single camp has grown into a network of about 150 church-sponsored camps throughout the United States — including the camps in Oxnard and Santa Barbara — and in 16 foreign countries.

Upon hearing of the program, the Klopmans felt a deep personal connection to it.

"Lyz and I both felt a strong spiritual calling to be involved in the lives of needy children following the birth and death of our son, Nathaniel Ryan, in 2001," said Klopman, camp director of RFKC Ventura.

When the organization kicked off its second year in Ventura County, the couple decided to sacrifice time and energy "to be obedient to God's calling to serve others" and joined in the summer of 2002 as counselors.

"When we learned that RFKC served abused, abandoned and neglected children in the foster care system — children who often lack a loving, attentive, nurturing and healthy relationship with their parents or other adults — we knew that God could use us to make a difference in their difficult lives," Klopman said.

As a 21-year officer and former sexual assault and child abuse detective, Klopman knows the horrors that so many children face. Every year in the U.S., more than 3 million child abuse cases are reported, including up to 250,000 cases of physical abuse and up to 150,000 cases of sexual abuse.

"And, tragically, about 1,500 kids die each at the hands of their caretakers; that's four every day," he said.

According to Ventura County statistics, there were 8,419 telephone reports of abuse and/or neglect, with 286 reports — 5 percent — leading to removal of a child from home.

Real children' in county

"These are not mere numbers; these statistics represent real children right here in Ventura County who have been beaten, burned, tied up, caged, starved, drugged, raped, sodomized, orally copulated, molested, indecently photographed, mentally abused, neglected and abandoned," Klopman said.

Abuse and neglect is a "giant in the land," Martin said. Due to substance abuse, domestic violence and an increase of stress in communities, child abuse is a strong threat to the successful future of many children.

"When an abused and neglected child enters the system, it is often a long slide toward more pain and struggle," he said.

School systems, mental health organizations and child welfare departments are not fully equipped to provide the intensive care needed by most children removed from their families, he said.

"Abused and neglected children need committed, safe, compassionate and loving adults who will coach them into successful futures and relationships," Martin said. "Otherwise, the cycle of abuse and neglect will continue and the giant will have his victory."

Positive influences

The camps — which strive to provide a week of positive memories for children — are free, staffed entirely by volunteers, and funded solely by donations that volunteers must raise themselves.

"We do not attempt to undo any of the damage in the children's lives," Klopman said. "We simply show the children that a positive experience with a loving adult role model is possible and that they can succeed because they've done so at camp."

For the first time, many campers discover what it feels like to have a caring family as counselors and staff shower them with encouragement, join them in games, activities and story time, and continually affirm them through compassionate care and love.

"This kind of love is so new for many of these children that a week at RFKC is often a life-changing experience and one that can sustain them all year long," Klopman said.

What abused and neglected children need are "champions," Martin said.

"There are many champions in the courts, schools and traditional child welfare organizations, but we need the community to take a stand. Children, youth and emancipated foster youth need the community," he said. "They need caring, safe and compassionate individuals to become mentors, foster parents or volunteers or to serve in some capacity to alleviate the pain, turmoil and difficulty of being a thrown-away child in a consumer society."

Martin, who also sits as a member of the "RFKC Camp Cabinet," as part of the national leadership team, emphasized that RFKC is an effort to help the community take responsibility for children suffering from child abuse and neglect.

"It is not a government program or service, and everyone involved is there because they choose to be," he said. "No one at RFKC is paid. This fact communicates to each child that they matter — that they are important and that someone cares. That someone' is the community."

Donations are tax deductible and can be sent to Royal Family Kids' Camp, Ventura Missionary Church, 500 High Point Drive, Ventura, CA 93003.

To volunteer at camp from July 13-18, call 432-6210.