ries.” The snapshots from a past Christmas camp also

ries.”

The snapshots from a past Christmas camp also tell a story. This one is about 50 senior citizens and a score of teenagers, all of them smiling, all of them looking like grandparents and grandchildren in a large and loving femily come home for the holidays.

There is also Fun Factor, the world’s only program in which children with hemophilia are mainstreamed into a traditional camping experience. Thirty youngsters who suffer from this hereditary condition attend the regular camping session with 4-H’ers from Arlington and Fairfax. “They teach 150 other kids that life is fragile and that not all children have the same oportunities. The sharing is unbelievable. You have to see it to understand,” Mr. Dooley said.

He concedes that “on the surface, some of these programs may not seem appropriate for 4-H-” But he points to the leaves on the 4-H clover and what they mean: hearts are touched, hands are helping, heads are thinking, all contributing to the health of the children in 4-H.

And it isn’t just the 4-H’ers who work with the elderly and with sick children who are changed. ‘"Hie experience for the 3,000 kids who take

rrt in our regular camping sessions

just as significant,” Mr. Dooley said. “Our programs are unique for them, too.”

He has brought the assistant U.S. Surgeon General to Harmony Hollow to lead a frank and open discussion on AIDS. “Young people are afraid. They need to be able to asl questions, to learn,” the center’s director explained.

Just one month’s programs have included a business management course for teens and a “Love is ... ” weekend, where the emphasis was on building self-esteem. “Think about it,” Mr. Dooley said. “The problems young people have with drugs, with alchohol, with sex, all go back to self-esteem. Teenagers need to learn to look first at their