On a recent spring afternoon, I met Carolyn Ballenger and Sue Ann Kudlo at Gavit High School in Hammond to talk about a project Ballenger started 15 years ago.

The project is really an annual trip to the East Coast to expose children in sixth to eighth grade to the world around them. Students travel to New Hampshire and Maine to be immersed in the an outdoor culture much like the American Transcendentalists of the middle 19th century.

The students will travel to Walden Pond in Concord, Maine. It is from this location that Henry David Thoreau spent two years writing and thinking about the world. From his time spent in seclusion, Thoreau wrote "Walden: or Life in the Woods."

"I want my students to appreciate nature and become environmentalists," Ballenger said. "They should make a connection to the world around them and become better for the experience."

The students gain so much more from the experience than the value of place and understanding the world around them - they also get to take control of their own lives, if only for 10 days.

To kids, nature is just the backdrop, the excuse. They are carrying out the journey of discovery all pre-teens go through. The students will learn tolerance, leadership, understanding and will be able to make connections among them and with the world around them.

As Ballenger pointed out, they will answer the same questions adults grapple with every day: "Who am I? Where am I going?"

As one mother said to Ballenger a few years ago, "I sent a little boy and got back a young man."

This year's program kicks off Tuesday and runs through June 20. There will be roughly 30 students from as near as Hammond to as far away as India and Egypt.

Much of the credit for helping to finance this adventure comes from Kudlo and the Citizens Savings Foundation which has contributed to the Children's Sea Coast Expedition portion of the trip. This program brings students in contact with Whales and other sea life.

Pat Kugler from Citizens Financial Bank chaperoned during this adventure one year and reported it was a wonderful experience. "I had a wonderful time seeing the sights through the eyes of the children."

Since that initial meeting to talk about the See Life Adventure, I have been trying to sum up in my head what the program means to students and to anyone who really wants to go out and see the world in which great books are written. Educators, like Ballenger and Kudlo, want to instill in their students a sense of where we come from and what we are indebted to.

This type of experiential learning means a great deal to students and the adults who will chaperone them during these 10 days. It is during this trip that they will be able to fully connect. So, once again, I return to a movie quote to sum up my thoughts. As William Wallace said in Braveheart, "Every man dies, but not every man really lives."

- Bill Vargo is a longtime Highland resident. The opinions expressed are his own. Contact him at billvargo@yahoo.com.