Young Life students trade service projects for donations

Published 3:15 pm Tuesday, July 26, 2016

If South Whidbey’s school campuses look a little bit cleaner lately, there’s a reason for that.

Anonymous donors pledged over $1,000 to help send 27 high schoolers and recent graduates of South Whidbey Young Life to Malibu Club, an annual camp held in Malibu, Canada that mixes fun with ministry. But it came with a catch: They’d have to earn their way by doing hands-on service projects at South Whidbey Schools.

For four of those students — Lauren Damerau, Kendra Warwick, Lola Ford and Blaine LeRoy — who were clearing a flower bed outside the South Whidbey School District office during an interview with The Record on July 21, it was worth the effort.

“Camp is a blast,” said Damerau, a senior at South Whidbey High School. “It’s not something you can really explain. It’s one of those things you have to do.”

The 27 high schoolers, along with four adult volunteers, left for camp today at midnight. At the weeklong camp from July 28-Aug. 3, they’ll do everything from learning to wake-board to zip lining across a lake. Young Life is an international, non-profit Christian organization dedicated to reaching young people and introducing them to God.

Ernie Merino, area director for South Whidbey Young Life, supervised the work parties while also lending a hand in the clean-up efforts.

“A lot of these guys want to go to camp. It’s expensive, but it’s worth it,” Merino said. “We have a lot of donors who have said they want to make that happen. They like the community, they like this, so they said, ‘Why don’t we have you guys do some maintenance at the schools?’”

Their service projects took them from campus to campus, assisting South Whidbey School District’s maintenance crew with a number of tasks that required the students to wake up early and get their hands dirty.

“I woke up at 8, and waking up at 8 on a summer day is just really rough,” said Lauren Damerau, a senior at South Whidbey High School. “For sure worth it.

The work crew cleared garbage and Scotch broom along the east side of South Whidbey High School, which is considered to be an invasive species by the Noxious Weed Control Board.

The perennial shrub displaces native and beneficial plants, causes losses to grassland and open forest, aggressively spreads to form monocultures, replaces desirable forage grasses and young trees, and its seeds are toxic to livestock and horses, according to the board’s website.

“It’s the worst,” said Lola Ford, a senior at Archbishop Murphy High School who lives on South Whidbey.

At the elementary school, the students and Merino weeded a flower bed, placed mulch and cleared additional pockets of Scotch broom. Merino said the crew consisting of Damerau, Warwick, Ford and LeRoy spent three to four hours per work session, beginning at around 9 a.m. and wrapping after noon. They racked up 20 hours last week.

Merino said the donors would track their work around the schools. Depending on the quality, their work would directly correlate to how much a donor would contribute.

“Our donors, their rules are: However much a kid works, however well they work, determines what they make,” Merino said.

The hope, Merino said, was for the students to care about the quality of their work and learn that rewards can come after hard work and discipline.

“It’s so cool that as a community, we have people that do that,” Damerau said. “If we didn’t, I probably wouldn’t be able to go to camp since it’s expensive. So I appreciate it a lot.”

Merino said he and others are also trying to establish Young Life Capernaum within the next six months, which provides young people with intellectual and development disabilities a chance to experience fun, adventure and develop friendships along the way, according to the Young Life website.