Gore’s Talk Fires Up ‘Summer of Service’ Youths : Programs: Administration’s domestic Peace Corps is launched in Bay Area amid high hopes and cheers. Participants will earn minimum wage on projects ranging from tutoring children to rebuilding playgrounds.

Vice President Al Gore launched the Clinton Administration’s domestic Peace Corps on Monday, telling 1,500 youths and young adults in training for a summer of public service that their work will help “build the future of America.”

In a spirited speech that drew wild cheers from the trainees, Gore called community service an idea that began with “barn raisings on the American frontier” and evolved through initiatives by Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.

“You believe in this country,” the vice president told the participants, who roared their agreement. “This country believes in you.”

Gore’s remarks highlighted the opening of a week of “boot camp” style training for volunteers in President Clinton’s Summer of Service, which will deploy young adults in 16 programs serving needy children.

Participants range in age from 17 to 25 and represent cities from Oakland to New Orleans--with about 200 from Los Angeles. Some are students at prestigious Ivy League universities; others are as disadvantaged as the children they will serve in the coming months.

The summer session is the modest prototype of Clinton’s $7.4-billion national service program, an effort that aims to broaden access to higher education and harness the energy of new graduates for socially useful work.

The program--a cornerstone of Clinton’s presidential campaign--is awaiting congressional approval. Clinton, who compares its potential to the accomplishments of Kennedy’s Peace Corps, has said he hopes to put 25,000 young people to work next year, and expand that to include 150,000 annually by 1997.

After their training this week, the participants will begin jobs ranging from tutoring homeless children to testing for lead poisoning and rebuilding dilapidated playgrounds. For their efforts, the summer workers will receive the minimum wage and a $1,000 stipend toward college costs. Money, however, was rarely mentioned Monday as the trainees swapped stories and discussed their motivations.

Most spoke in optimistic, idealistic terms, describing a desire reminiscent of their parents’ coming of age in the 1960s--a desire to make a difference.

“I think what we’re doing here is a reaction to the ‘80s, which were all about self-interest and making money and getting ahead,” said Karen Chang, 20, who will spend the summer at a Berkeley center for abused and neglected children. “Young people want to do something positive, and this gives them an obvious way to do that.”

DaMarlon McKneely, 18, of Oakland agreed and said his generation feels a special yearning to prove that “we aren’t apathetic.”

“People are so down on us, saying we don’t care and that kind of thing,” said McKneely, who will rehabilitate schools in Oakland for the East Bay Conservation Corps.

“That isn’t so. And I want my kids to look back and say: ‘My dad did something. He didn’t just sit around when there were problems to be fixed.’ ”

The training camp is based at Treasure Island Naval Base, a facility that is slated for closure by the Pentagon and sits on a spectacular piece of real estate in the middle of San Francisco Bay.

The students are housed in military barracks, begin their day with reveille at 6 a.m. and take part in calisthenics at 7. Their days include classroom sessions on leadership skills and the needs of poor children and--beginning today--fieldwork on projects in San Francisco and Oakland.

“We’re giving them a rigorous challenge to prepare them for the summer,” said Jennifer Eplett Reilly, director of the Summer of Service. “The focus is on basic skills for working with children, as well as leadership skills that we hope will serve them their entire life.”

Officials said the boot camp model is designed to send a clear message that the program is not some sort of all-expense-paid summer vacation.

“This is not a retreat complete with walks in the woods,” said Melinda Hudson, a spokeswoman for the program. “There is discipline, a schedule to follow and hard work.”

So far, the participants’ major complaint has been lack of hot water in the showers and some minor disorganization. The course work has been stimulating, and the speech by Gore, one student said, “got us all fired up, kinda like a pep rally.”

“All in all, it’s been great,” said Susan Goldberg, 19, a Los Angeles native. “There is a lot of energy here. What I’m feeling so good about is the tremendous potential that we as young people have to change this country.”

* SUMMER SERVICE IN L.A.: Two service programs get under way in Los Angeles and include scholarships for youths. B1