DANIEL TYLER GOODEN / L’Observateur / February 5, 2000

Forty students from across St. James Parish shipped out for training on Jan.14. The basic training included repelling, climbing, trust falls, challenge walls,log walks, tire traverses and other team challenges.

The student workers were hired by the school system to assist in the Great River Camp program this summer, a program designed by Elvis Cavalier, director of Student Programs.

There will be eight camps during June and July, two apiece at Romeville Elementary, Lutcher High, Vacherie Elementary and St. James High.The camps are for elementary school children and are designed as a hands on learning environment. The kids will learn about the environment and howbusiness, like those in the River Parishes, help protect it.

Students will serve as tour guides, mentors and counselors. Cavalier findsthat problems between campers can often be better mediated by someone closer to the camper’s own age.

The training camp, held at Salmen Boy Scout Reservation in Kiln, Miss., wasthe first of three training activities designed to prepare the students for counseling and assistant positions for the Great River summer camps. TheSt. James Parish Community Awareness Emergency Response sponsored thetrip, donating $1,468 for fees and T-shirts.

Students gathered from both sides of the river included Givongi Michelle Bazile, Crystal Broussard, Lydia Marie Anastasia Ester, Patricia Hoyal, Katy Roques, Ashley Huguet, Heather Taylor, Eryn Shaw, Damon Pittman, Mercshondria Honor, Lacey Taylor, Nicki McClung, Allison Lousteau, Katie Dunn, Sheena Jeffery, Valencia Thomas, Tyson Collins, Brittany, Cochran, Dawanda Williams, Bilan Costley, Raynell Jones, April Johnson, Bethany Bourgeois, Latricia Blain, Michelle Griffin, Trista M. Sieber, Brittney DanielleJoseph, Dorian Dennison, Chelae Knatt, June Janel Williams, LaQuesha Scott, Ka’Trina Polite, Ashley McClung and LaQuana Rashad Banks. Of the 22teachers involved in the overall program, Shannon Lasserre-Cortez and Shawn Oubre joined the group in their training.

“Team building” was the purpose of the trip, said Cavalier.

“We got two very different groups of students and put them together” in the hope they would come out as a team.

The plan seemed to work.

“The first day they arrived they seemed a little apprehensive,” said Cavalier, adding the following day they all seemed to belong.

Sixth Ward Junior High student Eryn Shaw said the trip was not at all what she thought it would be.

“I thought it would be a weekend of relaxing and playing cards, but we were dropped off in the middle of nowhere and did survivalist stuff,” said Shaw.

Shaw soon discovered what the camp was doing.

“I learned how to get along with the others,” she said, adding when challenged with an obstacle like being “afraid of heights on the wall, with a little encouragement” people could make it through.

Crystal Broussard of Lutcher High School found herself in the same situation as Shaw. She expected a lot of talking rather than the activities.”We did a lot of different things, like the trust fall,” she said, where you fall backward and let someone else catch you.

“I loved the repelling,” said Broussard.

The team building activities are not the only training the student workers will receive. On Feb. 18-19 workers will join teachers to develop the curriculumfor the Great River Camp. They will see how to design the curriculum andthen, from a student’s perspective, they can say “this will work and this won’t,” said Cavalier.

Both Broussard and Shaw applied for the same reasons. They both love towork with children. Also, the training has produced the same reaction fromboth of them. “I’ll definitely stick with it,” said Broussard. “I wish I wouldhave signed up earlier,” echoed Shaw.

That’s exactly the reaction Cavalier was hoping for. Most of the studentworkers are freshman or sophomores, and next year they will be even more prepared and experienced to work the summer camps, said Cavalier.

The students will continue on as long as they want, and others will be hired on as needed. There is no shortage of student workers. There were 40 chosenout of over 100 applicants, said Cavalier.

Cavalier began this program while working in Ascension Parish. In theprogram he has had students involved since fifth grade until past graduation.

Eight former student workers from Ascension will come and help out at the camps in St. James Parish, said Cavalier.Cavalier knows from experience that programs like this really help out students when it comes to finding funding for college. State and federalfunding agencies look well upon programs like this, said Cavalier. Thestudents will be given extra leverage in qualifying for college grants and loans.

More importantly, Cavalier expects that what the students will really take home with them after the summer is a sense of parish community and friendship.

“After the summer they will come away with a lot of friends on both the east and the west bank. Even though the river divides the parish, it is acommon bond,” said Cavalier.

Agreeing, Shaw said she has already made friends from across the river.

Broussard also is meeting more people. Being naturally shy, she expects theprogram will “bring me out of my shell (since) this is nothing I ever imagined I’d do,” said Broussard.

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