"Ok, we'll do 'Johnny Apple Seed,'" the counselor called out around noon to some 100 girls sitting at tables in the knotty pine dinning room of Camp Mariastella, 6,700 feet up in the San Gabriel Mountains above Wrightwood.

"Oh, the Lord is good to me," the hungry campers sang in loud, clear voices. "And so I thank the Lord for giving me the things I need, the sun and the rain and the apple seed. The Lord is good to me, hallelujah!"

After the clapping and foot-stomping died down, another counselor asked, "Can I have one server from each table?"

The place exploded into motion. Girls were half-running back and forth to the kitchen with bowls of celery and carrot sticks, dishes of cold slaw, plates of chicken bits, and pitchers of a ruby red colored drink. In less than a New York minute, a buzz, which only a group of giggling girls can make, filled the rectangular room.

Camp Maristalla has been creating summertime scenes like this since 1941. The Sisters of Social Service - who were founded in Hungary in 1923 and established in Los Angeles three years later - always had a strong interest in fostering an awareness of nature's beauty by giving urban children a hands-on camping experience.

The camp today, 85 miles northeast of L.A., is nestled on the slope of Acorn Canyon, with 216 acres of pine and oak trees. The campers, girls from seven to 15, are a real Southern California salad of social classes, races and ethnic groups. But keeping with the mission of the Sisters, who are professional social workers dedicated to serving the poor, the majority of the 800 campers each summer come from low-income minority families.

Campers, who are grouped by age, live in green wood cabins and open-air shelters, each housing a counselor and usually six campers. There's also a lodge, chapel, craft and health centers, an amphitheater plus a swimming pool, volleyball and basketball courts, and horseshoe pit.

During July and August, there are six weeklong sessions, but campers often return for more than one week. Many girls have been coming to Camp Mariastella for years.

Like Ariel Rodriguez.

The 13-year-old from Perris, near Temecula, has returned to camp every summer since she was five. "It's very fun because you get to meet new people, so I've always wanted to come back," she said. "I'm planning to stay here until I'm a counselor."

In fact, Ariel has an older sister named Melissa who's already a counselor and another sister, Samantha, who wants to be a counselor-in-training next year.

"Camp has always made me feel like I have another home, another family," she said. "I like being here because it makes me feel like I'm free. Out here there's fresh air and not a lot of people screaming and doing crazy stuff."

For Hana Goldstone, 12, this was her third summer at Camp Mariastella. She isn't Catholic, which has never been a "big issue" for her at camp. And she grew up in the suburbs of Thousand Oaks, where she only knew other white kids.

"It just gets really boring after awhile, everybody acting the same," Hana explained with a chuckle. "But out here you meet people from Los Angeles, and I'm not pressured to be perfect every second."

Third-grader Erin Mankle of Rialto came to camp because her big sister had come. She liked hiking to the little waterfalls, archery and low-ropes, where she learned to work with other kids as a team. But her favorite activity was swimming.

"Going to camp has helped me not be shy," she said, "and make a lot of friends."

Changing the world

Over the years, Sisters of Social Service Jennifer Gaeta, executive director of Camp Mariastella, and Patricia McGowan, co-director, have seen hundreds of girls get over their shyness and meet friends from different backgrounds they ordinarily wouldn't meet.

Sister Gaeta, a former counselor herself, has worked at the camp for more than 15 summers. Sister McGowan started off as a camper in the '50s, then became a counselor-in-training, a cabin counselor and lifeguard. She's logged some 23 years working at Camp Mariastella, 11 as executive director.

"We talk about changing the world," Sister Gaeta said, shaking her head. "How are we going to change the world unless we change people? And how are we going to change people unless we change them when they're little? So kids make friends here who are different from them, from a different part of town. And camp can be the place to understand that there's not so many differences between them."

They want the girls to leave Camp Mariastella with a greater sense of themselves and the world. Hopefully, they'll have more self-confidence, be less susceptible to peer pressure and become more independent. In short, their primary goal is for campers to acquire some valuable life skills.

"I've talked to some of the kids, and they feel so much pressure at home to perform in certain ways," said Sister McGowan. "Like this one kid was trying so hard to not be belligerent to the staff, because that was the model back home - in your face with adults. Up here she was able to let go of that and find a new way to relate to those around her."

Counselors can also be changed by the camping experience. Sister Gaeta was. She tells friends that she learned more working at Camp Mariastella when she was 18 than from all the graduate degrees she's earned.

"What the counselors get out of this program is a unique opportunity to test their skills on a variety of levels with a complete support group behind them," she pointed out. "The counselors practice not only being creative and doing fun things, they practice being team leaders. They also learn to be crisis managers and risk managers here."

Sister McGowan nodded. "At home they're 'the daughter,' at school they're 'the student,'" she said. "They're the recipients. And up here they're really expected to take leadership and care-giving roles. So, like the campers, counselors are stretched to see their world could be bigger. They're empowered."

'Good role models'

Liz Silvius, 17, of San Bernardino has been coming to Camp Mariastella since the age of six. But this summer was her first time as a counselor. She lived in a shelter with half-a-dozen 11-to-13-year-old girls.

"I think it really has helped me grow up," she said, grinning and wiping black grease paint from her hands after leading an outdoor arts-and-crafts workshop. "Being a counselor-in-training definitely helped me mature and grow faster, because you have responsibility.

"And you have good role models here," she added. "All the counselors and staff, Sister Jenn and Sister Pat - even the kids. You learn stuff everyday as a counselor."

This was Telayna Hampton's second year as a counselor. The 17-year-old Angeleno came here as a camper for six years, then was a counselor-in-training. She lived this summer in a shelter with seven five- to seven-year-old girls.

"I've learned some Spanish from the little kids," Hampton reported, "so it's really broadened my horizons. It's also changed my life a lot. At St. Mary's Academy, I was the vice-president and treasurer of the student body. And this camp taught me how to be a leader.

"It really made me feel like women can do stuff in the world," she stressed. "You can do whatever, as long as you put your mind to it and through God."