20 Young People From Whittier Show That While School Is Out, Church Is In

While most of their classmates are hitting the slopes or the sand this week, 20 young people from Whittier are spending their spring break giving a Capistrano Beach church a face lift.

The work crew hopped onto a bus Sunday for the 1 1/2-hour ride from Whittier to Palisades United Methodist Church in Capistrano Beach--just half a mile from the beach. Instead of soaking in the sun, they have been sweating beneath it, digging up and replacing an old sprinkler system, washing walls, and building, then painting, a roof over a church pathway.

Not only that, these 14- to 18-year-olds paid $50 to roll up their sleeves and hoist hammer and paint brush to spruce up the church for its congregation, many of whose members are elderly and cannot do the work themselves.

The youths are participating in the 34th annual Easter Work Camp for First United Methodist Church of Whittier.

“It’s interesting that (their) Whittier church was really wiped out by the earthquake and they’re coming down here and working on our buildings rather than their own,” said Lee Hirt, pastor of Palisades Church, noting that one of the Whittier church’s buildings was condemned after the Oct. 1 earthquake.

In years past, Easter projects have taken the younger members of the Whittier congregation to Northern California, Arizona, Nevada and the Mexican border.

Members of this year’s group admit that their school friends don’t understand why they chose to spend their Easter vacation doing manual labor.

“My other friends ask me, ‘Why would you work on your vacation when you could go somewhere else?’ ” 17-year-old Whittier High School senior Maggie Nelson said as she rolled another coat of brown paint on a board to be used for the new pathway roof.

“They don’t understand,” chimed in Nelson’s painting partner, Scott Taylor, a 17-year-old senior at California High School in Whittier. “You try to explain it to them, but it doesn’t get through.”

Maggie pointed out that it’s not as difficult as it seems. “We’re not working all the time. Part of it is just being together and friendship,” she said, taking an occasional swipe of a paint brush to Taylor’s arm or leg as they talked of school and graduation.

John Peel, director of the Whittier church’s Youth Fellowship program, said the work camps are as much for the teen-agers as for the congregation receiving their help.

Throughout the year the youth group sponsors newspaper collection drives, sells T-shirts and collects donations to raise money for some of the materials, transportation and food costs, said Peel, who is in his eighth year as director of the Easter Work Camp, his 12th as a participant. This year, the group raised about $2,200 to fund renovation work.

The camp is so popular within the Methodist faith that the youth group usually has several churches from which to choose.

“Generally, we pick a place where we know they have enough work to keep us busy for a whole week,” Peel said.

This year, they chose the Palisades Church because most of its members are elderly or work full time and are unable to donate their own muscle-power to the church.

“They either can’t or won’t” donate money or time, Hirt said. “In Orange County, the way of doing something is you hire somebody. . . . The work team will help us develop and renew our sense of calling as a church because if we can receive we can also give. . . .

“We needed a kick in the seat of the pants,” he added.

The congregation is affluent, Hirt said, but the church’s buildings have been neglected for several years. He hopes that the work team will bring his congregation together as well as inspire the church’s own youth to help out. “Our kids have a beach mentality,” he said.

The impact of the Whittier teens’ efforts on the youth of the Palisades Church “can never be measured,” Peel said, noting that the congregation’s spiritual needs may be at least as important as the physical repairs of its facilities.

Still, he said, the project is just as much for the Whittier teen-agers to learn to grow together as it is for helping another church. Once they participate in Easter Work Camp, they usually do it again the next year, Peel said.

“This is the only time I do anything like this,” said 18-year-old Rick Inlay, a senior at La Habra High School who is on his fourth Easter Work Camp. “The last time I did work like this was last Easter.”

Katy Hoiles, a 14-year-old freshman, may be on her first Easter Work Camp, but she is the third in her family to participate, as evidenced by her denim overalls, which were painted with the years ’83 and ’87 by siblings in past camp projects.

Pausing as she raked leaves, Katy repeated the advice from her brother and sister: “They told me to work hard, that’s about it. Oh, and to look in your sleeping bag before you get in, just to be safe.”

The camp members are sleeping on the floor of the church’s child care center, and five adult counselors take turns shuttling them to a nearby health club to shower. But the young workers said they didn’t envy friends who were spending this week at the beach, in Palm Springs or skiing--and most likely trying to squeeze 10 into one hotel room.

On the outside, they look like today’s teens--boys wearing jams and T-shirts, some of the girls wearing bikini tops to take advantage of the sunny skies. And once the prayer before meals is completed, they break into conversation about dieting, rock groups, drug addiction and overpopulation.

But on the inside, they know that they are a little different from their peers.