Up Next: Area teen has volunteering in his genes

By KATE WILCOX

The Evening Sun

Posted: 12/28/2009 01:00:00 AM EST

Zack McNeil was raised to volunteer. Both of his parents are firefighters, and his mom, Connie, always made sure her sons helped others.

"She doesn't make us do anything, that's just how she brought us up," 18-year-old Zack McNeil said of his mom. "She'd help anyone before she'd help herself."

The modest senior at South Western High School credits his mom with all of the volunteerism in his life.

McNeil has been a volunteer firefighter with Penn Township since he was 14, and has earned several letters of commendation for his work.

"I've always wanted to be a firefighter," he said. And that's exactly what he'll be doing after his high school graduation this year.

But somewhere in between school work, his job and volunteering with Penn Township, McNeil found time for not one, but three mission trips in the past four years.

The first two were focused on New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and the most recent one was to Alvin, Texas, after Hurricane Ike in February of 2009.

"The work varies depending on where we are," he said. "One day we'd spend the whole time mucking out houses, and another day we had to go help a guy who had a tree fall on his house."

McNeil got involved with the mission work because, by chance, his neighbor is Gary Grecco, executive director of the Hampstead-Hanover Youth for Christ, an international organization that works with students to give them opportunities to volunteer.

One of the programs they offer is Project Serve. It offers short-term mission trip opportunities to teens, like the ones Zack McNeil participated in. Work is split equally between manual labor and evangelism.

During the last trip to New Orleans in July of 2006, Connie McNeil went with her son as the group's nurse.

"It was quite an experience," she said. "I'm so proud that my sons are getting that everyone the world has to help each other."

Zack McNeil's brother, Alex, also a South Western graduate, works hard volunteering at his college, Temple University, where he started an organization in Philadelphia to help underprivileged youth get access to books.

But Zack McNeil doesn't see anything too outstanding about the work they do.

"It's just what we think is right," he said.