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Contact: Music Watson, (714) 481-5376
SANTA ANA, Calif. – Forty-eight students representing 14 schools from across the county have been selected to serve as counselors at leadership development camps for youth put on by the Orange County Chapter of the American Red Cross. Counselors are actively involved in all aspects of the camps, recruiting participants through presentations and written materials; learning the curriculum for each workshop and making modifications to enhance the curriculum, and facilitating workshops for participants, among other duties.
The Leadership Development Centers are two youth overnight summer camps designed to engage youth in building and enhancing their leadership skills. Each camp has its own curriculum created to address the psychosocial development needs of middle school age (12-14 years old) and high school age (15-18 years old) youth.
The camps are peer-led, meaning each is led by trained high school youth volunteers. The youth camp counselors are known as the “staff” of camp and come from different communities (schools, cities, ethnicities) within Orange County. The youth counselors are past participants (alumni) who put in seven months (more than 300 hours) of preparation as they learn to plan, organize and coordinate all aspects of each camp through mentorship by Red Cross adult staff.
This summer, counselors will include:
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Brea Olinda High student Jon Nguy
Canyon High student Darrel Phong
Centennial High student Sara Taylor
El Modena High student Veronica Chavez
Fountain Valley High students Tiffany Le, David Nguyen, Anthony Pam and Kelly Torok
Garden Grove High students Connie Kim, Jonathan Lee and Jamie Pham
J.F. Kennedy High student Harshal Modi
La Quinta High student Andrew Hua
Rancho Alamitos High students Soo Kang, Tuan Nguyen and Dolly Vo
Savannah High student Jennifer Pizano
Sunny Hills High students Ritu Ghiya and Chia-Chi Yu
Troy High students Charlie Wang, Jerry Wang and Junsong Zhang
Valencia High students Christina Huynh, Vanessa Nguyen and Vyvy Vu
Villa Park High students Kimberly Cushing, Jessica Do, Arman Ghorbani, Allison Horist, Nicole Houman, Dana Maier-Zucchino, Evan McGuire, Justin Pao, Priya Patel, Andrea Preza, Sheila Rouzitalab, Isabella Schilpp, Alex Tran, Jimmy Tsao, Alex Wilensky, Leah Wilendky and Trevor Zwick
The high school camp, LDC (Leadership Development Center), is a five day, overnight camp hosted in the mountains. The activities at LDC focus on communication, stress management, cultural awareness, problem solving, personal-awareness, and allow counselors and staff to draw out & build on different components of leadership within each youth- from the high spirited motivator to the behind the scenes problem solver.
The middle school camp, Jr. LDC (Junior Leadership Development Center), is a four day overnight camp held in a university setting. The site of Jr. LDC serves a two-fold purpose; it is a small and intimate site allowing us to use the school's facilities (dorms, cafeteria, classrooms), as well as giving many youth the opportunity to be on a university campus for the first time. At Jr. LDC, youth learn about themselves and the many leadership skills they posses through activities focused on team building, identifying the role they take in problem solving, strengthening their communication style, embracing their uniqueness and dealing with peer pressure.
