For one group of kids from St. Teresa’s Church, “summer job” has a quite a different meaning.

Twenty-one members of the Youth Core headed off to upstate New York the first week in August to help out complete strangers in need of some repairs and building projects to their homes.

The St. Teresa’s Youth Core joined about 400 kids from other church youth groups from around the country and Canada in Owego, N.Y. for the annual Mission Trip, sponsored by the Group Work Camps Program. The kids performed community service for members of the town in the form of construction-related tasks like porch and ramp building, painting, and installing skirting on mobile homes.

The local kids who went each had their own reasons for going on the trip, but they agree that the feeling they got from attending and working there was the most important one.

“I learned that when you help other people, it is a most rewarding feeling you get that beats out a lot of other things,” says Dan Nolte, 16, a junior at Nonnewaug High School.

He added that seeing the true thankfulness of the people he helped “was really an emotional experience.” Nolte’s trip was his first and he says he went because he wanted to connect with other kids in his church youth group.

“I think it’s really important," he says. "When you are a kid, you only have so many opportunities to do it.”

This mission trip, he says, “helps you grow with your faith.” The kids were placed in work crews based on their personal talents or need. Nolte was placed in a crew that built a porch.

“It was a really good experience actually,” he says. “I learned a lot about carpentry. And I got better at that, too.”

For Erin Kenney, 17, her recent trip was her third and she agrees it’s the feeling that comes with helping out others that keeps her coming back.

“I like seeing the satisfaction and gratefulness on the residents’ faces,” says Kenney, a senior at Nonnewaug. “They are so happy and it makes me feel great.”

Kenney’s experience through the St. Teresa’s youth mission trips -- Owego this year as well as one year in Pennsylvania and another in Maryland -- has so touched her that she aims to one day run a program for the youth Group Work Camps herself.

“It’s such a rewarding experience,” Kenney says. “It helps other people who need it and allows you to meet other kids from all over. It’s loads of fun.”

Kenney adds that the friendships made there with kids from around the country are a bonus. The kids still connect with each other through email and social media like Facebook, she says.

“The trips make you see how kids can be so welcoming and open-minded,” she says. “There is no judgment there."

The kids who go get to see that there really is so much good in the world, Kenney says. She sums up her experience there in three words: enlightened, inspired, grateful.

According to Tina Walewski, St. Teresa’s Youth Minister, the mission theme this year was "Connect: how we connect to each other through Jesus.”  And she says this particular group of kids just got it.

Before they could even get to Owego, the kids had to raise as much money as they could to cover expenses like travel and food. Through a car wash, a pasta dinner and a free will donation bin called Pennies from Heaven, the 21 kids from St. Teresa’s were able to raise more than $3,500 for their mission trip.

“To watch these amazing youth make connections with each other, their crew, the resident and to God was awe-inspiring,” Walewski says. "On a more serious note... there would be no other group of kids I would rather sleep on the gym floor, take cold showers or wake up early for. They are truly my connection to Jesus."

For Tom DiSarro, 18, a Woodbury resident who will attend Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the fall, the mission trips are “a lot more fun than building a deck or painting someone’s house would sound.” Last year, his first year on the trip, DiSarro says he went solely because he enjoys doing community service. This year, he says “I returned because it was so much fun.”

His crew’s project this year was to install a handicapped-accessible ramp and skirt the structure for a resident of a mobile home. Another crew’s job was to paint the mobile home. DiSarro says there really was not a place where one ended and the other began because the crews just all helped each other out on this particular home.

DiSarro adds that the resident, named Gordon, was so grateful for the help that he made a very special tribute to the youth group - he found a large rock, carved “2011” into it, chiseled a big cross in it and had each member of the crew sign his or her name.

“He said he was going to put it in is garden,” DiSarro says. “It looked really great.”

The kids worked each day from about 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and had one day to themselves to explore. They stayed at Owego Free Academy and camped out on the school gym floor. In addition to the work, the group had some down time where they could swim, play Frisbee, eat and partake in some spiritual activities.

DiSarro says that the kids who take a week out of their summer to do community service projects through the mission trip is something.

“There is a lot of good in people,” DiSarro said, adding that it makes him realize that people do care about others. “You have 400-plus high school-age kids on the trip. They are all just regular kids. It’s an enjoyable experience.”

As Nolte puts it, “this is a healthy mix of service, spirituality and fun.”
Even if you are not “super religious,” he says, “it is a great experience. You will change because of it.”