The first time I met Donnie Read, a stocky robust man in his mid-thirties, it was to talk about animals. We sat over breakfast and discussed how animals could assist in therapy with delinquent kids and the significance of the human/animal bond. Read told me a story about a dog of his that had been bitten by a snake and died as he was racing to the vet in his truck, the dog in his arms. His eyes teared-up while he was telling the story.

I was impressed. It's not often you find a grown man with that kind of feeling for an animal, or one who's man enough to let other people see it.

But Donnie Read's got a special kind of feeling for animals and for kids. He's been around both for most of his adult life. He's been around kids as a coach, a teacher and a principle of Bristol Middle School.

But, during the time Read was around kids, the kids he was around started to change.

"Towards the end of 1995," he says "we got a student - the first since I was principle - who had been in a juvenile program. The next year, we got three other kids that had come from juvenile programs. I got into a conversation with several of my friends on a fishing trip about how the country was changing and how we were starting to get students moving in who had records and had been in juvenile facilities."

"I started doing some research on different types of facilities and different types of programs that were available." He says. "I just wanted to know where these kids were coming from."

Around December of 1996, "we had one of our kids sent off to a juvenile program. It renewed my interest. I looked at some of the articles I'd read and research I'd gathered and decided that Wilderness Camps were among the most successful programs out there. I thought - there's not a better place than the 560,000 acre Apalachicola National Forest. I figured, out there, there's pine trees and solitude and if you take the youth out there and get him away from his surroundings and put him in an environment in which you can get him back to the basics, it could be a life changing experience."

Read went to visit the student that had been sent to a juvenile program. When he got back he "took out a yellow legal pad and started writing."

"I wrote about what I thought would make a good program."

Read looked at books like "The Worth of a Boy" and "The Wilderness Road," written about one of the earliest wilderness camps.

"I've always been active on the Liberty County Juvenile Justice Council." He explains. "It just seemed like a natural. The interest was there and Liberty County was a wonderful setting."

Donnie Read, as he himself admits, was the ideas man, but he "didn't have the business sense to put it together." So, he went to his brother, Benji, a business manager, and they sat down with the legal pad. As Donnie anxiously waited, his brother poured over the pages. Finally, Benji Read looked up. "I think we can make this work." He said.

So, in September of 1998, three years from the time Donnie Read started to mull over the idea, Liberty County Crossroads Wilderness Camp (LWCC) opened. The camp is located on 78 acres in the middle of the Apalachicola National Forest on the sight of a former hunting preserve. It has a lodge which can house 18 campers, and a staff of 30. The camp sports a 50-foot Alpine Climbing Tower, a saw mill, a dorm and an office building.

The Board of Directors includes some of Liberty County's most involved citizens, and they along with the Read brothers brought together an Action Team to develop specific areas such as programming, security, clinical services, continuous care and vocational education.

Dr. Wayne Smith, a local educator, developed a "school-to-work model" which is fundamental to the camp's approach. "It was a concept" says Read "that we had been talking about but couldn't put it down on paper." Smith put the ideas on paper and developed the model which focused on the individual and took into consideration his vocational interests, academics skills, technical abilities, and possibilities for community service.

"In the school-to-work model," Read says "students are able to develop their academic abilities while taking into consideration where they fit into the community, and what their vocational interests are. At the same time the community feeds into the system." The LWCC staff has involved local government, mentors, churches, and civic organizations. "What you wind up doing is developing the whole person" says Read.

Another key component, according to Read is "continuous care" which involves not only working with the camper, but with his family. "We're in his home community developing a support-team made up of mentors and churches and school personnel, people who will support the camper when he gets out of the program." The continuous care begins as soon as the camper starts the program.

"Another focus is helping the camper find their vocational interests, and hopefully placing them in a vocational program when they're ready to leave us. If they leave us without any skills, their chances of success are very slim," says Read. "We want to help them to gain meaningful employment."

LWCC is also very careful about hiring staff. "Most of our people see it as a calling," says Read. "We expect them to see it as a camper-oriented program. And, we try to have them work as a team to achieve the end result which is to produce a productive citizen We want to encourage them to have fun while they are doing it, enjoy being around the campers, but always keep in mind the end goal is the rehabilitation of that camper. And the camper achieving the goals he sets."

"We've got this camper for six to nine months," Read points out, "and we try to emphasize that every moment is a teachable moment. From the time they get up to the time they go to bed, they need to be learning. Six to nine months is not a long time for us to try to make life changing decisions to help them. We have to take full advantage of every minute."

In order to take advantage of that learning time, the Camp has developed an active animal therapy program and is also implementing music, art, and drama therapy.

Even with all this, the kids complain - about food, about the clothes they have to wear, about not being able to make telephone calls when they want. They complain like all kids complain when they're put on restriction. But, they also change.

"A lot of them come in here really withdrawn from society and feeling hopeless," says Curtis Lee, Operations Director at the Camp. "Some feel like nobody really loves them or cares about them. Usually they stay that way for the first month. Then you see them start to develop some trust - trust with the other kids and the staff. They come out of their shell. They step up and become leaders of their teams instead of followers. They start giving out suggestions instead of waiting for instructions."

The LWCC has only been in operation a short time, but when I asked Curtis Lee if he thought they were going to see some success stories with the kids, his reply was immediate. "I know we are." He says.

"I think everyone of them's better than when they came in. In my opinion when that kid steps off the bus and looks in your eyes he decides whether he's going to trust you. If he doesn't, you know it's going to take several months to see any changes."

The animal therapy program is partly designed to encourage trust by working with the animals and talking about their feelings. As I sat with the nine campers underneath an oak tree on log benches they had made themselves, I asked them about the animal therapy.

"You can tell the dogs you love them," one camper said "but they aren't going to believe you. You have to prove it to them. You have to take care of them. You have to hug them, talk to them, get them toys and teach them how to play games with you."

"You have to have patience," another camper added "a lot of patience. You can't lose your temper and frighten the dog."

"You have to treat him like you would a little baby," another said.

One camper, who considers himself the snake killer of the group said: "Learning how to raise a dog teaches you responsibility. If you were to have a kid, it teaches you how to take care of a kid. It teaches you how to be patient, teaching the dog one step at a time. You teach him the small things and move on up to the biggest things. That's when you have an understanding."

"I'm planning on having 1,000 kids," chimes in a small blond camper who is already closely attached to one of the dogs, Gypsy. "And I'm planning on training those jokers."

"The man," notes another "has to be the dog's best friend."

These are basically good kids. Some of them are spending almost a year under supervision because of less than an hour's reckless teenage behavior. And they could be in a facility that drives them deeper into criminality rather than one that tries to pull them out of that downward spiral.

I asked them how they demonstrated love for the animals. "We treat them how we want to be treated" a camper responded "with respect, dignity and we're nice. We keep working with the dogs."

"What we've noticed," says Edwin Birch, the Clinical Services Director, "is that after a while here the boys calm down. They're more considerate of each other. The longer they're here, the fewer and fewer episodes of bickering and picking on each other we see. And, some of them have become observers of their own behavior for the first time. Having us give them feedback on their behavior makes them start to notice that they have certain habits they might want to change. They don't always avoid temptations, but they are at least aware now of their own behavior."

Birch also notes that for the first time in their academic careers, some of the campers start to experience success. "They would still rather be outside doing hands-on things," says Birch "but for the first time they're starting to make A's at least in some subjects."

"And each one of them has started to care about himself more - his appearance and his future. They've never given much thought to the future, but now they've began to talk about careers and what they're going to do in life."

Birch has witnessed first-hand the success Wilderness Camps can bring about. He knew a boy who went through the West Florida Wilderness Camp in Ponce de Leon, Florida. "I know what he was like before he went there," says Birch. "He just went through a fundamental change." Birch was very impressed with the atmosphere when he visited the West Florida Wilderness Camp. "The atmosphere was therapeutic. It was strict but warm. I know these camps work because I've seen them work in other locations," he adds.

"I used to teach physics," says Read, sitting in my office recently after just going through a use-of-force training session, "and it's like the butterfly effect. The butterfly flaps his wings in China and the rippling effect causes storms in the Atlantic. You never know the one thing you might say that would turn a child around, or what effect he might have on the people he's around or that he influences. If you really break it down, that's how we all affect each other."

The Liberty Wilderness Crossroads Camp is not about warehousing juveniles. It is about giving them a second chance and hopefully, changing their lives.