July 3, 2009 "Rosie's" encourages girls to learn non-traditional skills Play video

(NECN: Anya Huneke, Essex, VT) - If you're looking for a summer camp with swimming pools, tennis courts, and musical theater you won't find it here.

What you will find are tool belts, speed squares and chop saws. And many young girls with the skills to use them.

13-year-old Lindsay Lozell is one of those girls, who, in a week and a half, has gone from terrified to excited.

When it comes to power tools, Lindsay says, "Before I thought I could hammer nails... now a big piece of lumber can be turned into little beauties."

She's a camper at 'Rosie’s Girls'-- a three-week day camp in northwestern Vermont.

Girls here learn skills often reserved for men: Carpentry, welding, auto mechanics, masonry.

And in the process, the hope is, they'll see that they can do - and be - anything they put their mind to.

Liz Shayne\Founding Dir., Rosie's Girls "Weather they become a carpenter or a mason- that's not what it's about... for me, it's about knowing that they could.”

This was the original Rosie-- Rosie the Riveter- a marketing tool created by the U.S. government during World War II. The purpose of this was to encourage women to get into the workforce- to fill some of the jobs left open by men who went off to war.

Although women now have a strong presence in the workforce, founding director Liz Shayne says the non-traditional jobs are still largely held by men.

Liz "I know in the field of carpentry we're below

The mission here is to give girls - entering grades six through eight - the confidence to explore different trades.

Charlie MacMartin\Instructor "The difference between day one and two was amazing."

Lindsay "It makes me feel like I can do a lot more things than I thought before- because being a girl held me back a little bit."

But family and friends tend to benefit in the process.

In the ten years since it’s founding in Essex, Vermont, Rosie's girls has been replicated in ten sites across the country. An indication that maybe- Rosie was right.