Community Corner
Victoria Camacho Among Top 10 Chivas USA Essay Winners
The St. Ignatius 7th-grader is selected from among more than 1,000 entries for her Chivas USA dream team essay challenge.
Victoria Camacho
Whiz Kid's Age: 13
Whiz Kid's School:
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Whiz Kid's Accomplishment: Victoria's essay was selected from among roughly 1,000 other entries as one of the 10 winning entries in the 2011 Chivas USA’ s “Imagine More. Be More!” Essay Challenge. The 400-word essay challenge was opened up to all LAUSD students in grades 6-8. This is the first year the essay challenge included private and or parochial schools. The students were asked to consider how the values they admire in one of their favorite professional athletes could translate to better learning and better communities. They were asked to create a “dream team” headed by their selected athlete and give the team a project goal that would in some way help them make a difference in their community.
Whiz Kid’s Plan: Victoria came up with a two-part strategy. First, in order to pay for her “dream team project,” she created a master plan for a carnival with funds raised from rides, food, games and entertainment going toward her community project. For her “dream team project” Victoria laid out an aggressive plan to build recreation centers for troubled youth. She would begin here in Highland Park, and then build more centers across California later on. Victoria chose Candace Parker from the Los Angeles SPARKS as her dream team captain and said other team members would include Marc Wahlberg, Adam Sandler, Oprah and Cameron Diaz.
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Whiz Kid's Key to Awesomeness: “I thought recreation centers would be the best way to help the community because we need more places for kids to have fun and stay connected. I chose Candace Parker because she’s a role model for women and she’s loyal to the game.”
This is Victoria’s first essay contest win. She’s more of a history buff than a writer, but she says she enjoyed the essay because it gave her a lot to think about and the opportunity to come up with something that could benefit others around her. “I felt like this was a great way to create opportunities to make our neighborhoods better,” she said.
Each of the ten essay winners will receive four tickets to Chivas USA’s home opener, four tickets to Disneyland Resort, Chivas USA autographed merchandise, and a special Fox Deportes gift pack. In addition, the winners will also receive a framed “Imagine More. Be More!” poster that will be signed by the entire Chivas team.
