Five Wareham High School students are getting valuable mentoring experience this summer, and at the same time, they’re working to fund a future trip to Costa Rica.

CARE, which stands for Community, Academic, Recreation and Enrichment is in its 12th year in Wareham schools, and this is the first time the High School Junior Counselor program has been run.

The program consists students who assist teachers in different classes throughout the week and accompany students on one of the many field trips CARE offers over five weeks in the summer.

In return, the grant-funded program provides stipends partially covering a travel abroad program in which the counselors are required to be enrolled. All five of the Wareham counselors are enrolled in a school trip to Costa Rica in February.

"It's been very successful," said CARE Director Jane Fondulis of program. "It's been one of the highlights of the summer."

She said when a counselor walks into a classroom, half the kids get up and run to them. "They really form a bond with the little ones," Fondulis said.

"The kids can be a bit clingy," said Jesse Sarkisian, a high school sophomore in the program. While he was not expecting that, he said he enjoys the connection he's made with the younger students.

Sarkisian works with film classes, as one of his main jobs is making a video for the CARE program by the end of the summer. In the afternoons, he works with the woodshop classes.

Jack Goodwin-Gilson, a sophomore counselor in the program teaches general music classes to Pre-K through third-graders in the mornings and glee classes in the afternoon. He said students are working toward singing "I'm a Believer" by the Monkees by the end of the program.

Goodwin-Gilson said he plans on having a career teaching music to slightly older students.

"If you can teach Pre-K, you can teach anything," he said.

When asked if they would want to come back next summer or suggest the program to friends, Goodwin-Gilson and Sarkisian replied in unison, "Definitely."