Do-good camps attract teens

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. -- ''Keep it up!" encouraged a buckskin-clad supervisor as Jesse Dell-Ross struggled to strip the last bits of bark from a branch in the withering heat. ''You're going to have it done there in a minute."

Constructing a Powhatan Indian shelter from scratch with stone tools was just one of many tasks Dell-Ross tackled this summer. For two weeks, the Andover High School senior and a dozen other teens rose at dawn to whitewash fences, stuff sailors' mattresses, oil vintage cannons, and help repair Williamsburg's famous Colonial sites.

In this camp for history buffs, the participants are all volunteers. But their parents paid more than $1,000 so they could earn academic credit while preserving national landmarks.

Community service has become the hot summer activity for today's pressured teens. Whether propelled by high school graduation requirements or by advisers pitching ways to burnish the college application, scores of parents plunk down big money each summer to give their children elaborate volunteer experiences.

The practice, though, doesn't sit well with everyone. Some counselors say they doubt college admissions officers are so easily impressed.

Teens, whatever their reason for going to the camps, say they get a lot out of the experience. ''It's been hard, but it's been rewarding," said Dell-Ross, 18. ''This makes my record look more appealing. It shows colleges I can go out and do hard work and have the enthusiasm to do hard work."

His mother plucked the Sheffield-based Landmark Volunteers program from a pile of community-service prospects as an affordable, fun way to expand his horizons while building college credentials. More than half of America's 12,000 camps have food drives or other good-deed component, according to an American Camp Association survey. Of ACA's 2,400 accredited camps, 19 percent offer community service programs and 2 percent focus on community service as one of their top three activities.

At one end of the spectrum are no-frills camps like Landmark, a 13-year-old nonprofit that offered 60 summer-service opportunities this season, including the July cleanup of the historic Jamestown Settlement. Led by a North Carolina school principal, Dell-Ross and his team put in eight-hour days weeding, replacing rotten mats, and learning to scrape deer hide with oyster shells. They also tidied their own quarters, endured cold showers, bugs, and no TV, and still found time to race go-carts, watch movies, or chat.

More deluxe camps include Sarasota, Fla.-based Lifeworks International. This summer, for $3,650, high school students could spend three weeks caring for orphans in China or learning Spanish while working with a Costa Rican school. A little more, plus airfare, and Global Works, an adventure travel and service camp in State College, Pa., will take your teen to Fiji for three weeks of diving and building huts for ecotourism, while $6,990 will buy a month with Putney Student Travel helping farmers in Tanzania.

Why not volunteer at the local soup kitchen? Because college admissions officers have become ''desensitized to makeshift community service," said Steven Roy Goodman, an education consultant and admissions strategist in Washington, D.C., who recently saw one client off to Mongolia to work with the homeless. ''The stakes are raised. You've got to do something more than what every other student is doing."

Clean a park in Kenya to prepare for democratic elections, and ''it makes for an interesting application," Goodman said.

The experiences in community service camps can provide ''real serious grist" for a college application essay or interview, said Tom Herman, codirector of Windsor Mountain International in New Hampshire, a camp founded in 1961 which that community-service programs in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Russia this summer. ''Imagine writing about a conversation you had in Spanish with a sister and the mother of your host family about birth control."

Many college admissions officers disagree. ''A one-shot deal is not going to cut it," said Susan Garrity Ardizzoni, director of admissions outreach at Tufts University, a school with a history of attracting students committed to community service. ''In the end, what we're looking for is a student's commitment over time, and not just a month of going to help the homeless."

College admission is ''not a scientific process," cautioned Ardizzoni, who believes some camps, including the popular college application programs, prey on parents' fears. ''There's never one answer that colleges want."

Judith K. Hingle, director of professional development at the National Association for College Admission Counseling, agrees. ''The best thing to do is to be yourself, and let that come through on your application," Hingle said.

Whether an experience is paid or free, in school or at an adventure camp, she said, ''what colleges look for is, 'How did you take advantage of what was there? How did this change my world?' ''

Many families, however, believe the camps will give their children an edge. ''I used to get a lot of 'How much are they charging?!' " said Jeffrey Solomon, executive director of the National Camp Association, a New York-based camp advisory service. ''Now, the jaws aren't dropping as much. More and more parents are becoming aware of what community service means, and the benefits their child gets."

Patricia J. Dell-Ross, Jesse's mother, said Landmark's affordability ranked up there with its biggest benefit: giving her son something ''useful and important" to do instead of hanging around the house like last summer.

''I wanted him to have a broadening experience and be out of town with a group of kids," said Patricia Dell-Ross, who learned about Landmark from a school counselor and several teachers.

Camps should create well-defined projects with tangible results, said Landmark's assistant director, Jean Emberlin.

''What we do is very visible and lasting," said Emberlin, noting that student volunteers, who camp out in schools, churches, or wilderness sites, often learn more in two weeks at camp than all year in school.

''It's definitely the hardest thing I've ever had to do," said Benjamin Moore, 17, of Stow, who will be a senior at Nashoba Regional High School this fall. Last summer, he volunteered at Plimoth Plantation. This year, he was at the Jamestown Settlement.

''I can use this for my college application," said Moore, noting that he came away with new respect for the Colonists after working below decks on the ship, the Susan Constant. ''They had to spend 144 days in the ship. We had to spend only three hours and my back already was hurting, just scrubbing down the walls."