Teens Learn the Value of Giving

SANTA ANA —  Fifteen-year-old Alexi Perez helps disadvantaged elementary school students do their homework. Lulu Meza, 13, cares for children while their parents attend a special program at her church. And Vanessa Melgar, 18, worked as a counselor at a weeklong summer camp for mentally disabled adults.

“I learned how to have patience,” the recent high school graduate said. “Just doing little things for them made them so happy. It made me appreciate what I have a lot more.”

The three teenagers are among about 300 countywide volunteering 15-20 hours a week this summer in a host of community programs. The work is part of a new effort called Youth and Young Adults in Alliance for Community Service sponsored by Catholic Charities of Orange County. And on Sunday, the organization said thank you to its youthful volunteers with a ballon-festooned celebration featuring, among other things, T-shirt giveaways, a limbo contest and a Catholic bishop dancing to the beat of “YMCA” in shorts and a cowboy hat.

“If people could see these youth, it would give them lots of hope for the future,” said Michael Driscoll, auxiliary bishop of the Orange County Diocese. “The ones that make the news kind of depress all of us; we’re saying thank you to the ones who do good work.”

Begun three months ago, the program has two main purposes: to provide important services for those in need and to encourage young people to make meaningful community service a permanent part of their lives.

“Building healthy communities is really what we want to do,” said Tara Brennan, the program’s director.

Among other things, program participants visit the sick and the elderly; work on renovating homes in need of repair whose owners are elderly, disabled or hurting financially; tutor low-income children; help teach English to recent immigrants; assist teachers in citizenship classes; and help developmentally disabled adults.

Next month, Brennan said, some of the youthful volunteers will host a weeklong summer camp for disabled children.

“We are interested in getting youth involved in meaningful community service,” Brennan said. “We want them to know that they’re making a difference and that people notice it.”

Many of the more than 100 teens gathered at Rancho Santiago College for Sunday’s outdoor bash, in fact, said the summer volunteer work had opened them to new vistas.

“It feels good because you feel like you’re helping someone,” said Myra Andrade, 16, who spends about 20 hours a week tutoring elementary school children in need of help.

It’s not all a bed of roses, however.

Elizabeth Kunath, 15, said she expected to have some measure of control over the little kids she watches weekly for members of her parish. But such expectations were short-lived. “They don’t really listen to me,” she confessed. “It’s still fun, though.”

And Perez has learned that inspiring youngsters to get their homework done can require the skills of a coach as well as a tutor.

“Sometimes they don’t want to do it,” he complained. “They just want to mess around. I tell them to do their homework first.”