Since 1948, Troy Camp has sent thousands of local underprivileged elementary school children to camp. For those past 57 years, it has also been a family affair.
The program was founded by Otis Healy, a former alumni association president and trustee of the university, and three of his children are now involved. Healy said he believes family values are one of the important things the counselors teach the children who come to camp.
All students involved with the program volunteer so that proceeds can be funneled into the camp's programs.
"This is the only charity I know of that has absolutely no employees," he said.
In 1972 his daughter, Bridgette Healy, came up with the idea for Pass the Can, the camp's largest fundraiser that occurs at each year's homecoming game.
"The program was very limited at first because of the small number of volunteers," Bridgette Healy said.
Last year, Pass the Can collected more than $20,000, said Dustin Lauermann, director of alumni and public relations at Troy Camp.
At Saturday's homecoming football game, student volunteers hoped to hit every section in the stadium, said Ian Maher, co-executive director of Troy Camp and a senior majoring in biological sciences.
After an announcement at halftime, hundreds of volunteers, camp counselors and attendees in neon green and pink T-shirts lined up at sections around the Coliseum to collect donations from USC football fans for the camp.
They collected about $20,000 again this year, Lauermann said.
The organization needs between $85,000 to $90,000 a year to run these programs, Maher said.
Each May, Troy Camp takes about 200 disadvantaged elementary children from the neighboring Los Angeles area to camp in the San Jacinto Mountains.
Troy Camp also sponsors Student Mentoring and After School Help, an after-school program to mentor children from 15 local elementary schools and take them on monthly field trips to places such as Disneyland and the zoo.
Otis Healy said he began the organization while attending USC because UCLA had a similar camp and thought his school could do it better.
The children participate in a number of events with their student counselors while camping in Idyllwild Pines.
Healy's granddaughter, Katie Distelrath, a sophomore majoring in psychology, said her favorite event is called the Game of Life.
The kids at camp pick a level of education they want to complete - high school, a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, a doctorate - and then write an essay on why they picked that particular level.
"Hearing the essays will make you cry," she said.
The higher the level of education they pick, the longer they have to sit out on the game, but the more money they will have to buy what they want when they can play.
Maher said he has seen children pass through Troy Camp that later come to school at USC and then become camp counselors.
Jose Montoya, a 10-year-old from Vermont Elementary School, said he went to Troy Camp last May and now wants to go to USC someday.
Stephanie Landicho, a Troy Camp volunteer and freshman majoring in health and humanities, walked around with Montoya during the homecoming game.
"I love doing stuff with these guys," she said.
Distelrath said it has been amazing to see the impact Troy Camp has on its kids.
While in New York City over the summer, Distelrath said she ran into a college student who attended Troy Camp while he was growing up in Los Angeles.
He hugged her and told her that he was at school in New York because of the life-changing experience he had at camp.
"The children build bonds with the USC students," Maher said.
They escape their inner-city concrete neighborhoods to experience the outdoors, many of them for the first time, he said.
