Dad didn’t feel right selling late son’s classic car. Then he thought about Camp Taylor
After spending several years restoring his late son’s 1970 Volkswagen Beetle, Michael Rodriguez tried to sell it. He said he even got one offer for $15,000.
But he just couldn’t do it. It didn’t feel right. So he we waited and prayed and then talked with his wife, Jody, who also had been praying. They both came to the same answer: Donate the classic car to Camp Taylor, which operates summer camps for children with heart disease.
Chase Rodriguez had spent about a dozen summers at Camp Taylor, first as a camper and then as mentor to other campers. He died in 2018 from a heart attack at the age of 29.
“He grew up as a Camp Taylor kid, for sure,” Jody Rodriguez said Monday at Camp Taylor, which is near Grayson and occupies the former grounds of Stanislaus County’s inmate honor farm.
“The kids here connect,” Michael Rodriguez said. “They all have scars on their chest. It felt like a safe place.”
The Rodriguezes were at Camp Taylor to give their late son’s Volkswagen to camp founder and Executive Director Kimberlie Gamino and her son and camp namesake, Taylor Gamino. He was born with half a heart and has undergone several open heart surgeries.
The occasion also was a chance for the Rodriguezes, who are from Fremont, and Kimberlie and Taylor Gamino, 28, to remember Chase. They recalled his kindness and acceptance of others and his willingness to live his life and not be embarrassed because he had heart disease.
“He made heart disease cool,” said Taylor Gamino, who attended the camp with Chase Rodriguez and looked up to him as a big brother.
Camp Taylor will display the red-and-white VW during summer camp. Staff will drive it occasionally to speaking engagements with civic clubs and could enter the VW in car shows to create awareness about Camp Taylor and heart disease.
Kimberlie Gamino said the donation is not the only good news for Camp Taylor.
She said this will be the first summer that Camp Taylor will offer overnight residential programs at its own facility. In the past it has had to rent facilities, including at Stanislaus State University and in the Livermore area.
Camp Taylor now has 10 cabins outfitted with bunk beds and triple bunk beds and is working on adding six more as funding becomes available.
A water garden also is new. It’s a quiet, shady space with lawn, trees and three fountains near the San Joaquin River. Gamino said it’s where campers can journal about their worries, hopes, fears and dreams.
The camp features heart education, archery, and — at the pond it shares with Laird Regional Park — canoeing, fishing and kayaking. Campers also engage in campfire skits and songs. And there is a new 24-foot-tall climbing wall.
Camp Taylor started in 2002 and had rented facilities until acquiring the former honor farm in 2018. (It had continued to rent facilities for the children to sleep after acquiring the honor farm.) Camp Taylor offers summer sessions for children 7 to 12 and teens 13 to 17. This year’s sessions are in July. Gamino said Camp Taylor provides programs for about 600 children and parents annually.
She said the camps this July will be in-person only. Gamino said all the children and volunteers and staff who work with them are required to be fully vaccinated. Camp Taylor provided virtual programming in 2020 and hybrid programming in 2021.
The nearly weeklong summer camp is free except for a $150 registration fee.
More information about Camp Taylor — including how to sign up, become a volunteer, or for those interested in renting the facilities for their own camp programs or corporate events — is available at www.kidsheartcamp.org.
This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 12:00 AM.
