Blog: January 2019

(Un-) Planning a Trip
January 14, 2019

Since I started working here in July, no trip has gone exactly as planned. This year’s 12th Grade trip to New York City was no different. Wind, snow, and ice forced us to postpone the trip to the end of November. The seniors made up the entire itinerary for the trip and chose to walk the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn as our premier event of the day. I found a museum in Brooklyn for us to visit and discovered a TedTalk that I wanted to share with the students and have them reflect upon throughout the day.

I played the talk in hopes of generating ideas among the students about how we can impact the community through simple acts of kindness and generosity. I also thought it would tie in very well with the museum, but the museum turned out to be a dud, and I was left wondering where our conversation would go and what we would talk about.

Turns out there was no reason to worry. Several students began sharing their experiences as StreetLeaders and the impact that they have made through the StreetLeader program. Then the conversation shifted as the seniors began to think back on their time together at UrbanPromise. The group admitted that they have not always gotten along. They acknowledged the growth and maturity of their classmates. They told each other how close they now feel and how they want to make the most out of the rest of their time together.

After leaving the museum we hopped on the subway and the group parted ways. Half of the group took the Metro to Times Square while the others split off early to see a young lady sing Christmas tunes outside of the New York Stock Exchange for their annual Christmas Tree lighting. Our friend Heavenly Joy, who we saw practicing earlier in the day, was not performing when we made it back to Wall St. Instead we got to see Jake Miller perform.

Although I have never heard of him, the 12th Grade girls are huge fans, so, despite the fact that we had to walk a mile to catch the ferry by 5:30 and were short on time, we stuck around and watched. Like a lot of other things on the trip, this was not in our plans; but as I looked up from my watch hoping that we would have time to make the ferry, I saw a row of Trekkers beside the stage smiling from ear-to-ear. I decided to wait it out. In one last unplanned moment, I felt the closeness of the 12th Grade class, and I thought it was much more important to let them share this moment together than it was to catch the Ferry.  Anyways, what’s the worst that could happen?

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