For Devotion to Kids, Immortalized on Wall of Recognition

From Mike Darnold's perspective, a couple decades ago there were children in San Juan Capistrano who weren't able to take advantage of opportunities that lay right in front of them.

He knew of kids who, although they lived only three miles from the coast, had never seen the Pacific Ocean.

On a whim in the mid-1980s, with their parents' permission, Darnold loaded up his RV with about 25 children of low-income families and took them on their first beach trip to the shores of Doheny State Beach in Dana Point.

The spur-of-the-moment venture led to planned summer youth trips into the mountains. "I love working with kids and that's what I'm most proud of," Darnold, 68, said in reaction to his name being added June 28 to the city’s Wall of Recognition.

He relocated to San Juan from Fullerton in 1976. In the three decades that passed, he's helped found kid-centered organizations including the San Juan Community Youth Task Force, Coastal Mountain Youth Academy, Rotary Youth Leadership Camp and the. 

Now defunct, the task force aimed to empower immigrant parents who were raising children on limited incomes. The task force created mobile recreation facilities and offered moms and dads after-school tutoring. The tutoring program still exists today.

Darnold found time to devote to other causes, too. He is a past president of San Juan Capistrano Historical Society and and a former nine-year trustee of the Capistrano Unified School District, the 12th largest in the sate.

Although he was on the school board in 2007 when the Orange County District Attorney found the trustees violated state law by repetatedly holding closed meetings, and he subsequently opted not to run for re-election, Darnold remains active in local schools. He works now for the city of Dana Point as a crisis intervention officer, helping teenagers deal with substance abuse (he overcame his own alcohol addiction in 1980).  

"Today, my passion is helping teenagers," Darnold said. “Sometimes parents have the tendency to throw their hands in the air and give up when a kid that age becomes trouble. I try to do my part and help the situation the best way I can. That‘s all I‘ve ever tried to do."

The Wall of Recognition was installed in 2000 to recognize those whose contributions to San Juan Capistrano make it a more "productive and pleasant place to live, work and play."

Editor's Note: There are short stories to come about Matt Gaffney and Jean Vincenzi, whose names were also recently added to the Wall of Recognition.