Teens with Dreams gear up for college

MACHIAS – Five years from now, the young people who are taking part in the Teens with Dreams summer program this week on the University of Maine at Machias campus may very well remember these particular five days.

Seventy-four kids from Down East towns, all of them heading into the eighth grade next month, are living just like college students, dorms and all.

Teens with Dreams is the shorter, summer portion of a larger, federally funded program called GEAR UP, which stands for Gaining Educational Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs.

Already the program has been conducted at the University of Southern Maine in Gorham in June and, last month, at Colby College in Waterville and the University of Maine at Presque Isle.

“We’re helping kids believe that they can go to college after high school,” said Clifford McHatten, a second-year program adviser on behalf of the state Department of Education.

The department received a five-year, $11 million federal grant in 1999 for GEAR UP, which is designed to provide college awareness activities and academic support for sixth- through-12th-graders.

Even partway through the week in Machias, the pupils seemed to be catching on.

They enjoyed spending four nights in the dorms and eating in the university cafeteria. They met with UMM professors for some classroom learning – more for fun than stress, of course.

“I like the math classes. Those are cool,” said John Stover, 13, of Sullivan.

“Learning all the new stuff is good,” said Kirsten Simmonds, 12, of Lubec. “We learned how to crack codes on calculators.”

That anything is possible seemed to be the theme of the week. In the music room in Powers Hall, teacher Gene Nichols showed teams of pupils that “anything can be musical.”

“Is there anything in this room that you can’t make music out of?” Nichols quizzed during a Tuesday afternoon session. He even had one of the kids beating on the empty plastic water jug to keep rhythm with the rest.

Nichols engaged pupils in his classroom in the same way that two other faculty members, Gayle Kraus and Sherrie Sprangers, drew their attention in the science rooms.

Learning was a definite undercurrent, and exposure to new experiences was the key to a good week all around.

The pupils came from such Washington County towns as Machias, Jonesboro, Harrington, Cherryfield, Steuben, Indian Township, Pleasant Point, Eastport and Lubec.

A few more came from Gouldsboro and Sullivan in Hancock County.

Many of them had been to Machias before, but never to the UMM campus.

At Machias, where the camp has been held for the past five years, the Down East location allowed for some special field trips. Pupils went Monday to Campobello Island for a visit to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s summer home, and Thursday to the Downeast Heritage Center in Calais.

Today they go to Beals Island for the marine studies-oriented Downeast Institute for Applied Research and Education. There they will tour a hatchery, then return to campus for the Teens with Dreams graduation.

This is a week to remember, said Colby Richardson, 13, of Jonesboro.

The best thing for him, so far?

“I got to meet new people.”