About Our Chapter

Who

FTC Santa Ana is a chapter of For the Children providing programs and services to combat family-induced childhood trauma with positive memories and positive adult relationships through camp, mentoring, and advocacy.

What

FTC Santa Ana offers Royal Family KIDS Camp and Mentoring programs for children in our community that qualify for the program. We also connect with community partners to support resource families and youth in foster care.

Why

We believe that the teaching and example of Jesus in caring for “the least of these” will remain our motivation. It is our calling to serve the children of family-induced trauma and wave the flag as their advocate. Will you join us?

Carry the flag with us.

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Meet our Directors

Rebecca Fraticelli-Stephens

CO-CAMP DIRECTOR
Susan Hastings

CO-CAMP DIRECTOR
Tyler & Priscilla Choi

MENTORING DIRECTORS

Santa Ana Chapter Origin Story

For the Children Santa Ana was founded in 2021 to serve the children of central Orange County facing family-induced childhood trauma. Our leadership team has a range of 5 to 35 years of experience in successful camps. This new chapter looks forward to 35 more years serving more children in Santa Ana and central Orange County.

In 1985, the first RFK summer camp for 37 abused and hurting children in foster care. After just 5 days, founders- Wayne and Diane Tesch, saw the astonishing differences camp made for the children and knew that more camps could take place all over the country. Through this vision, 1 camp became an international organization partnering with churches and child welfare agencies around the globe.

Royal Family KIDS Camp will always remain the flagship program, alongside year-round mentoring, however in order to address the systemic issues surrounding child welfare, the organization had to evolve.
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As of November 2020, Royal Family KIDS, officially became For The Children. This change has allowed expansion into advocacy, awareness, fostering and adoption, volunteer engagement and more. Our highly experienced and trained staff and volunteers will continue to serve foster children through our RFK Camps and Mentoring and are encouraged and eager to place additional focus on the systemic issues facing our children around the globe.

The Santa Ana team decided to take this national vision and expand it even further by starting our chapter, launching a new camp in Santa Ana, CA in 2022.

“Camp is a family affair. Not only for the campers but also for the counselors and staff members. We all look forward to being together every year and give up work vacations, personal expense and leave behind our own family for one week. We do this because we all believe that one week makes a difference in the lives of the Campers.

As the Activity Coordinator I am able to see campers use their own imagination and creativity to create projects. For one week they have control over what they do and create. This builds confidence and positive memories they can carry with them for the rest of their lives.”

— Sheila: Activity Center Coordinator

“RFK is a group that does it right. The work that they put into making sure every kid is loved and included is something I have never seen before.

To be a counselor is life changing. The kids that come to camp change the counselor more than anything else. It’s truly a special thing to be a part of.”

— JD: 1st Year Counselor

“Camp means a couple of things to me as I have experienced camp as not just a camper but also a teen staffer and now a counselor. When I was a camper, camp meant the world to me. It was a place where I was able to be a kid when at home I was not able to be. It was a place where I was able to realize I was loved not just by my counselor but by God more than I could ever imagine. Camp was my safe place—for a whole week I was able to be myself and shown love after the rough year of neglect. Once I became teen staff, camp was where I was able to pay forward. It was also very nice to return to the camp that changed my life. It was where I realized I have a passion for these children. Now as a counselor, this camp means the absolute world to me—it means I am truly contributing to these children’s lives.”