PEACHTREE CITY—Earlier this summer, 13 members of Life Teen at Holy Trinity Church set off for the vacation mecca of central Florida. Their goal was not to hang out with Mickey Mouse or watch the killer whales at Sea World, but to give a week of their time at the Orlando Catholic Heart Workcamp, an annual summer program that serves residents of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

For many of the teens, the trip was a life-defining event that helped them to appreciate the church’s call to service.

“From the day we arrived, we saw what a difference we made in the lives of these residents,” said Nicole Remillard, a rising senior at East Coweta High School. “We knew why God had called us to be there.”

The teens and their chaperones spent the week painting, doing minor repairs on the houses of senior citizens and handicapped residents and working with underprivileged children at summer day camps.

Holy Trinity parishioners had prepared the youth for their efforts by donating a variety of supplies, including work gloves, safety goggles, paint brushes, drop cloths, buckets, scrapers, wire brushes, putty knives, rags, paper towels, window cleaner, hammers and nail aprons.

Catholic Heart Workcamp has a long track record of success, which was a principal reason that the parish youth minister, Andy Costantine, chose the program as the first summer outreach for Holy Trinity’s Life Teen. Program administrators identified the residents who would receive assistance, arranged shelter for the 300 participating teens from parishes all over the country and provided extra supplies, food and evening activities that included concerts, guest speakers, daily Mass, games and social time.

“We camped in a public middle school that was not in the best shape, so the accommodations were pretty primitive,” Costantine said. “This wasn’t a pleasure trip but truly a life-changing experience that taught the teens the meaning of service and sacrifice.”

The teens gained as much from the experience as they gave, making friends not only with the residents they helped but with young people from across the country. Remillard worked with 7- to 9-year-olds at a day care center for low-income children.

“They wouldn’t stop hugging us,” she recalled. “They were just so hungry for any type of affection.”

Jeff Schortmann, a rising sophomore at Starr’s Mill High School, worked with a group of five teens and two adults doing yard work, painting and making light repairs at a shelter for abused women and children in a rural community on the outskirts of Orlando.

“The residents there couldn’t believe we had come to Orlando to help them,” he said. “The joy in their faces was awesome.”

Kenny Jubb, also a Starr’s Mill sophomore, helped to paint and repair the home of a woman in her 80s. Each day, she came outside in the scorching heat to visit with the group, which included teens from North Carolina, California and Taiwan, Jubb said. On the last day, the older woman went to the community center where the teens were having lunch, stood in front of the crowd and expressed her thanks for their hard work. The experience “changed my life,” Jubb said.

Jessica Lovelace, another rising sophomore at Starr’s Mill, agrees.

“At first, I thought we would be building a house and I wasn’t enthused about the trip when I learned we would just be cleaning and repairing homes,” she says. “But once I was there, I was so glad I went.”

“The residents would sit on the front porch and talk with us while we worked and children from the neighborhood would come and play in the yards and help us,” Lovelace recalled. “Even the bus rides back and forth to the school were fun because we had a chance to compare notes with the other teens.”

Everyone who participated came away with a desire to return next summer.

“There is such a need for this type of work,” Lovelace said.

In fact, Costantine hopes that members of Holy Trinity’s Life Teen will make an annual pilgrimage to the Catholic Heart Workcamp that grows in strength and number each year. He has already advised teens to mark their calendars for June 10-16, 2001.

“Not only did our teens work and help others, but they also met other youth and had a great time,” he said. “I think the experience taught them that service isn’t necessarily a duty they have to endure but an opportunity for fun and adventure.”