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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (May 12, 1957)
BY JERRY KLEIN 413513 TummiinnKBir9 ess Teen-agers raise their own food at Lincoln Farm Work Camp where these photos were taken. Haying helps these youngsters develop their muscles. More important, they learn what it's like to work. r? For teen-agers seeking a challenging vacation, camps that combine work with play are the ideal answer. JLife isn't all play, but if a man enjoys his work, oil of life becomes a lot more fun. That's the philosophy of Summer camps that combine work with play: to create understanding among young people of the happy influence of honest labor. Experts say too many teen-agers grow up with barely a nodding acquaintance with hard manual labor. Too many regard work as something to be avoided as long as possible. For such young people, work camp can be a real eye-opener. Work camp can also be an exciting and valuable experience for teen-agers who know they're no longer children but not yet adult. These boys and girls are tired of conventional camps and want more of a challenge. to growing minds and muscles. At a typical work camp, mornings are spent learning "the art of work" doing farm chores, building, painting, or clearing land. Afternoons and evenings are devoted to swimming, baseball, craft work, and nature study. Work camps charge as much as $600 a Summer. And while youngsters at some are paid a few dollars for their labor, earning money is never the primary goal. The objective is, rather, "the satis faction of a job well done, a respect for manual labor and those who do it." One of the oldest of these camps is the Putney (Vt.) Work Camp. One of the youngest is Lincoln Farm Work Camp in Roscoe, N. Y whose aim is "to help teen-agers grow into an adult world." According to Harold Loren of Ardsley, N. Y., owner of Lincoln Farm, welfare workers now are evaluating Summer work camps as a delinquency preventive for underprivileged city youngsters. Some camps are established wherever a worth while job needs to be done. Campers of the Amer ican Jewish Society for Service, for example, have cleaned up flood damage in Connecticut, built camp shelters for miners' children in Pennsylvania, and helped erect homes for war veterans in Indi ana. Besides working for nothing, these teen-agers provided their own transportation and paid $175 apiece for food and lodging! Campers of the American Friends Service Com mittee have cleared slums and constructed storage sheds for crops. Similar camps will be operated this Summer by such organisations as the World Council of Churches and the Y.M.C.A. The problem is to find suitable projects where adequate facilities are available for the campers there's seldom shortage of youngsters eager to work! 1 ;-." i A m m . . " " Jf ill,.":!. C . ... A Not many of these boys and girls will forget the work involved in making their own canteen. Easier than hard manual labor, craft work gives busy teen-agers a chance to use skill on a creative task. ml f wm'W any Despite the dripping paint, this boy will use this swimming raft knowing he worked on it! Putting up a pole to carry power to a camp building, youngsters' learn to work together to get a job done. A list of work camps sponsored by religious agencies is contained in "Invest Your Summer," a pamphlet available or 25c from the Commission on Youth Service Projects, 257 Fourth Ave., New York 10, N. Y. 20 FamUv Weekly. Mnv .
