DATE: Monday, October 13, 1997              TAG: 9710130059

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: SERIES 

SOURCE: BY NIA NGINA MEEKS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   78 lines

A FIRST CRACK AT GIVING BACK AREA TEENS KICK OFF SUMMIT WITH A BEACH NEIGHBORHOOD CLEANUP EFFORT.

The Pilot is chronicling the Youth Celebration Summit through the eyes of one of its participants. This is the first of two stories on the summit. The second will be published Tuesday.

Meet Wendell Patrick Jr.

He's 13. He goes to Larkspur Middle School - eighth grade.

And Sunday afternoon, he spent two hours, miles away from his home, cleaning up a neighborhood he had never known before.

He didn't mind the cleanup effort in the Lake Edward section. It was part of a two-step process toward making his city better, which he is all for. The second step for Wendell and hundreds of other young South Hampton Roads residents will come today - at Virginia Wesleyan College - through the Youth Celebration Summit.

The summit is the first major initiative launched by the delegates who went to Philadelphia in the spring to represent the area at the Presidents' Summit for America's Future. The Youth Celebration Summit will give the under-18 set the first crack at solving familiar ills through five goals that retired Gen. Colin Powell and others say are essential for a young person's success: a healthy start, a mentor or caring adult, a safe place, skills and a chance to give back.

Giving back is important to Wendell, and to his mom, Robin Patrick, a Portsmouth special education teacher. She came out Sunday with Wendell to get dirty. ``I tell him, `Don't wait until you're an adult to try to help,' '' she said. ``When you get grown, it's up to you.''

He takes her advice.

The two pledged to get involved with community service and now spend time with seniors at the Norfolk Health Care Center. It's a way for them to spend time together. Dad, Wendell Patrick Sr., a Navy petty officer, is away from time to time. And it gives Wendell a chance to do something for someone else while learning at the same time.

``I like talking to the elder people. I think it's pretty fun,'' Wendell said.

Even after spending much of Friday sick, Wendell insisted on going to the cleanup.

Dozens of other Virginia Beach kids joined him. On Saturday, a group of Chesapeake youths planted trees in the city's arboretum.

The efforts were modeled after the event in Philadelphia, where presidents and taxpayers alike white-washed graffiti and planted shrubs in several blighted neighborhoods.

``I was surprised at the number of people who came out,'' Wendell said, looking at his team members, who wore orange bibs and plastic gloves and carried yellow trash bags.

``It's different from my neighborhood,'' Wendell said. ``There's all this trash, and liquor bottles. People don't seem to care about their neighborhood.''

The crews filled their bags on their way to the Lake Edward Neighborhood Park. There, with materials and expertise supplied by city employees, they planted a few trees.

The day progressed normally for most of Lake Edward. Teen-agers played hoops on the courts. Kids played in their front lawns. Music spilled from apartments. Cars and motorcycles slid along the winding streets just behind Newtown Road. Few, if any, joined the cleanup crews.

``You can't keep going out cleaning up the same neighborhood over and over,'' Wendell said. He sat on a park bench watching the basketball game as he munched on pepperoni pizza, a treat for his work.

``They should see that other people shouldn't have to come in and clean their neighborhood. But I'm going to try to make a difference.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]

BUILDING A BETTER WORLD

IAN MARTIN photos/The Virginian-Pilot

Compton Gregory points the way to the Lake Edward Neighborhood Park

in Virginia Beach for fellow volunteers Robin Patrick and her son

Wendell.

Wendell Patrick, 13, picks up trash at the Lake Edward Neighborhood

Park in Virginia Beach.

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