Sunnyside wrestler Audrey Jimenez will help put on a camp later this month. Counting Takedowns will teach both financial literacy and wrestling skills.

 Josh Galemore, Arizona Daily Star 2020

Three of Sunnyside's standout wrestlers have teamed up with a state agency to host a wrestling and financial literacy camp for underserved youth in their community.

Counting Takedowns, which runs from June 14-18, will host 60 Tucson students from kindergarten through 12th grade.

The camp is being led by Blue Devils state champions Jaime Rivera Jr., Audrey Jimenez and Michael Avelar, all of whom maintain a 4.0 GPA.

During the camp's first four days, groups will rotate for 30-minute interactive learning sessions taught by the Arizona Council on Economic Education's Kathy Pondy and volunteers. The curriculum will combine wrestling with economics and help campers understand how the lessons they learn in wrestling can be applied outside of sports. 

The rest of the time will be spent learning wrestling techniques, with hands-on training on the mat.

Counting Takedowns is part of a fellowship the trio received through the Dragon Kim Foundation, a California-based nonprofit that empowers young people to impact their communities while pursuing their passions. The foundation was started in 2015 by Grace and Daniel Kim and named for their 15-year-old son Dragon, who was killed when a tree branch fell on his tent during a family camping trip in Yosemite.

The foundation has already sponsored more than 300 high school students. Its  fellowship program is designed to help young people lead by launching a service project from start to finish. Kids in the fellowship program receive weekly mentoring, business training and $5,000 in seed funding.

Fellowships were initially available only to students in California in Nevada, but the foundation expanded into Arizona this year. The Sunnyside team is one of the state's first two fellowship recipients.

Jaime Rivera Jr., a senior at Sunnyside High School, will wrestle at West Point next year.

A novel idea, transformative training

Sunnyside wrestling coach Anthony Leon learned about the opportunity from friend and UFC fighter Dominick Cruz, who served as a judge for the challenge in 2021.

Cruz also knows Rivera, a three-time state champion who will wrestle at West Point next year.

"When this year's challenge came around, (Cruz) got in touch with Leon and said they needed three guys from Sunnyside to take on the challenge," Rivera said.

The team held meetings and went through the application process, recording videos, filling out forms, writing essays and answering questions.

"It was a long process that we did really fast," Rivera said.

After talking with Leon, the athletes decided to pitch the idea of a camp that combined wrestling with some sort of math-based education.

"We were thinking the main purpose of our program is to help the underserved people of the south side of Tucson, and people that may need a little bit of help or are struggling," Rivera said. "We thought if we add an academic side to the camp, that's something that's never really been done before. I've never been to a camp where they teach math or anything school-related."

Their application was selected, and the Sunnyside wrestlers attended a leadership training camp in Las Vegas.

Jimenez called it a transformative experience.

"It was very interesting. The first day, we did personal stuff and said affirmations out loud or we'd go up to strangers and stare them in the eyes," she said. "It was very challenging socially and they put us in uncomfortable situations, but it got us out of the box and really learning about what leadership meant and authenticity and how to be ourselves throughout this whole process."

Jimenez, a two-time state champion, is one of the world's top young female wrestlers. She recently won the U20 and U17 Women's World Team Trials in Texas, and will represent the United States at the World Championships both in Italy this July and in Bulgaria in August. 

The Sunnyside group decided to integrate financial literacy into their campk figuring it was the perfect opportunity to get kids schooled in topics not usually taught in schools, Rivera said.

 Volunteer mentor George Figueroa, an accountant who studied accounting and finance at the University of Arizona, agreed.

"I see the problems that people get into all the time," Figueroa said. "They don't understand the debt they're taking on and can fall into traps like buy-now, pay-later programs."

Figueroa said the skills learned at the camp can last students a lifetime, especially if an important adult in their life — like a coach — emphasizes its importance.

"I probably spent more time with my high school coach at that age than anyone else, and I'd hang on every word that he said," Figueroa said. "There's a great opportunity to use this kind of forum with coaches who care and are some of the best teachers at this stage of our life. We're tasking them with endorsing this kind of curriculum to their team members and hopefully that resonates with these wrestlers."

Instantly full

Registration for the camp filled up quicker than the Sunnyside group expected. The first 40 spots filled up right away, and an additional 20 were added after people reached out to say they hadn't been able to sign up. Within 48 hours of opening registration, the camp's 60 spots had been claimed.

The final day of the camp will be open to the community, and campers will talk about what they learned. Rivera said the cookout-style event, complete with games, will be a nice way to connect with the community.

"We really want to make a change. We want to inspire and lead others," Rivera said. "I always mention how I want to strike a change and people to see that there really are avenues for them and take advantages of their opportunities and never miss a beat."

Rivera, Jimenez and Avelar have one more in-person training before their camp. They'll travel to Las Vegas next week.

"It's been a long process and I've been so busy with school on top of having training and wrestling and trying to graduate early, so it's a lot of extra work," Jimenez said. "But I'm very, very excited."

Jimenez she and her teammates are doing something that's never been done at Sunnyside or even in the area, which makes all that extra work worth it.

"There are so many kids that have higher limits than they realize, but they never go out of their comfort zone to realize their full potential," she said. "I hope this opens their eyes to the education part and how to value education and their future and not just wrestling or what our community or society has planned for them."

Lessons for life

Jimenez said the camp will teach kids that responsibility and hard work can trump rough family circumstances and a lack of resources.

"I would like to do this multiple times a year or at least every year," Jimenez said. "The Dragon Kim Foundation gave us a budget to run this camp, but we have so much support, especially at Sunnyside, and through our personal identities, we have pulled in support from other companies and businesses. It's so simple and it's going to help out so many kids."

Jimenez and Avelar, a 2022 state champion, will both return to Sunnyside in the fall. Jimenez said she's hopeful they'll be able to host a second camp next year.

Dragon fellows will present their projects in September during a celebration and graduation, with three projects being selected to compete in the foundation's annual challenge gala in Orange County. The winning team will receiving additional funding to carry their project into a second year.

Figueroa hopes more students will apply for the seventh cycle of the challenge.

"This is a fantastic program they have at Sunnyside," Figueroa said. "When you think about some of the greatest athletic organizations in Arizona … they've been at the top for so long now."

The Dragon Kim Foundation is underwriting the upcoming Counting Takedowns camp.

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Contact Star reporter Caitlin Schmidt at 573-4191 or cschmidt@tucson.com. On Twitter: @caitlincschmidt