By Grant Playter
From July 8 to 12, more than 250 young people from across the country paid to sleep in Hazlet Middle School, spend time away from their families, take cold showers in portable stalls and get up at the crack of dawn, all in the pursuit of a single purpose: Volunteering and helping people in the local community via the Jersey Shore Workcamp.
“I’ve been doing this for about nine years, just helping people that can’t do what us youth can do,” said Nick Monahan, 20, from Nashua, New Hampshire. “I like to help out the less fortunate and let them know there’s more out there.”
The Jersey Shore Workcamp is a weeklong program that takes place every two years during which youth and adults fix a variety of maintenance issues at properties in the Bayshore area. The program was started in 2003 by William and Gail Bechtoldt, parishioners of St. John’s United Methodist Church in Hazlet.
“We started with a $5,000 loan from our church and we pursued it,” said William Bechtoldt. “We managed to get a couple of grants for (Super Storm) Sandy and our little foundation did 502 homes in three years.”
Currently, the program has grown to cost between $25,000 and $30,000 to run, with all of its funds coming from fundraising and a $400 fee paid by each worker. The residents whose homes are worked on pay nothing.
The Jersey Shore Workcamp tasks groups, typically composed of about five youths and an adult project leader, with projects in the homes of local residents throughout the Bayshore, in towns like Middletown, Atlantic Highlands, Hazlet, Holmdel and Keyport. These tasks ranged from painting to gardening to carpentry and at times involved multiple groups.
Ben Wilch, 16, from Powell, Ohio, listed at length the tasks the three groups working his assignment did at the two-story home of an Atlantic Highlands woman who recently broke her back.
Over the course of a week they built an access ramp, redid the plumbing in the bathroom, cleaned out the brush on the surrounding property and ripped up and replaced the rotting kitchen flooring.
That last task hadn’t even been part of their assignment, according to Wilch, but for “some reason” they felt compelled to check the floor and discovered the rotting wood. In part, Wilch credits this work to this year’s theme of “relentless.”
“God’s power is relentless, he will do anything and everything to show his work through us.” said Wilch. “And he is relentless. He gives us strength, gives us power that we don’t think we would have in any other way.”
In the blazing July heat, the groups worked relentlessly toward a single-minded goal of helping their residents. At their wrap-up meeting Friday night, William Bechtoldt boasted that they had achieved a 96 percent completion rate for the projects assigned to their groups.
“The best part is seeing young adults like these teenagers do this work,” said Bechtoldt. “People appreciate it and don’t realize how good teenagers can be. It warms my heart to know that you can get a group of volunteers like this together every other year.”
What makes the Jersey Shore Workcamp doubly effective is the social outlet it provides for the kids in the work groups. While the teens do spend all year with their local youth group raising the needed funds to participate in the project, they are assigned at random to their work groups the night before the projects begin.
Laura Metrone, a 16-year-old from Bristol, Rhode Island, participated in the workcamp projects before and treasures all the “forever friendships” she’s made with other teens from across the country.
“I keep in contact with the people that I met all the way from Ohio, Minnesota, Virginia, Texas.” said Metrone. “I still call them, text them all the time.”
Additionally, each day the kids sat together for lunch and performed their daily “devotions,” or scripture readings which tied to the themes of the work camp project. They invited their residents to join them, hoping to give them a spiritual benefit in tandem with the physical one.
“We share our faith and we spread faith among the community,” said Wilch. “Help restore the lives of others, bring them closer to God.”
Ultimately, the Jersey Shore Workcamp provided not only a way for residents to get their homes repaired, but also an outlet for these teens to develop both social ties and their own faith.
“I love going on these mission trips and really get- ting to know other people and getting to be with God for a week,” said Metrone. “Get to know and help people who need our help.”
