Teen Connect reaches out to help the needy

March 28, 2009

Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Liset Marquez, Staff Writer

ONTARIO - With community service often a high school requirement and a desire to get youth volunteering in their communities, Rhea Stumm launched Teen Connect.

From planting vegetable gardens to creating a healthy cookbook, the focus of Teen Connect will be on projects that promote healthy living and physical fitness in the community, said Stumm, of nonprofit organization Hands On Inland Empire and organizer of Teen Connect.

"It's good for them to get out there and learn new skills like leadership they can take with them for work or in college," she said.

Hands On is an organization, located in Rancho Cucamonga, that partners with other organizations to develop service projects in the community, Stumm said.

The four-month long program meets once a month for five hours at various locations in the county. A total of seven youth have signed up for the inaugural session.

Their first project was creating healthy snacks for the kids who live at Mercy House, a transitional living home in the city.

On this Saturday afternoon the volunteers showed kids how to make "stoplights," graham crackers with pieces of fruits to resemble a stoplight. They also made "ants on a log," which was celery with peanut butter spread and raisins on top.

Among those volunteering was Jacquelyn Austin of Redlands. The 16-year-old learned about the newly formed group from her career center at Redlands High School.

"I wanted to volunteer because it would help me develop leadership skills and talking to young kids," she said. "It would help me grow in that area."
Jacquelyn said she was interested in the concept of the program as well.

"It can be hard to eat healthy for those who are low income," she said.

Stumm agreed. The problem can be for several reasons, such income, accessibility to grocery stores and the convenience of fast foods, she said.

Alejandra Aguilar, 16, said she is always looking for new volunteering opportunities. This piqued her interest because of the interaction with kids.

"I want to be a teacher so I'm doing a lot of work with kids to find out if that's really what I want to do," the Colton High School student said.

The volunteers also made some crafts that highlighted how many servings of fruits and vegetables kids should eat in a day.

Teen Connect is a spin-off a program Hands On already had called Team Connect, which is service learning oriented. The problem was Team Connect was geared toward those in the community 18 and over.

The founding program is only starting with seven volunteers from the San Bernardino County area, she said.

Prior to each service project, Stumm said she will sit the volunteers down and talk to them about the focus for that month.

"It's so they're not just volunteering they are there understanding why they are there and the difference they are making," she said.

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