Five cities were hit last year on our way to Washington DC. Here are some of the things we did when we were there.
Our first project of the tour was at a farm that had programs for mentally handicaped people to learn how to grow food for themslelves. They had several green houses and normally had the mentally handicaped people come out to plant and pick their crops. This year though, the heat had gone out in the greenhouses, and all of the vegetables were going to freez unless they could get picked ASAP. Enter STLF!
In one hour, we had all of the carrots picked for them (it would have taken them at least a week to do that by themselves!) and we started to clean out a barn that had a lot of wood and picknick tables in it that needed to be moved. After we finnished, we packed up and headed out to our next project.
Our next stop was at a mall that needed help putting on Read Across America for its city. We helped get kinds excited about reading by having them play games to earn books. While this was one of our more relaxed projects, it was the one that really got us comfortable talking to a lot of people we didn't know.
Our third stop on our trip was to Canada, where we helped a massive foodshelf package and ship much needed goods to places all over Canada. We got in some sightseeing and took pictures of Toronto from across the Ontario river.
After our project, we raced out to view a wintery Niagra Falls. The spectacle was as amazing as could be expected, and we soon found ourselves on the bus again, playing our newfound addiction: Maffia!
When we stopped in Syracuse, we helped out a daycare that was very, very understaffed. It was put on by the salvation army, and thus it was for low income families that were unable to send there children to normal daycare. From helping with the infants to playing with 3rd graders, we worked to keep the kids interested in any way possible. At one point some of the more exhausted team members just sat down and let the kids crawl over them! The kids were so happy to have people there to visit them and pay attention to them as they played.
Getting to tour one of the coolest cities yet, we hung out around downtown Batlimore for a night. Stopping for fine Baltimore dining (Hard Rock and Chipoltle), we checked out the ships docked around the city.
The next day, we had one of the more nerve racking projects. Traveling in groups, we walked around the run down parts of Baltimore walking up to anyone that looked homeless or poor (and that was just about everyone who we saw on the street) and gave them information about a fairly new organization that would be able to help them find work and shelter. One of the people that we talked to could not stop thanking us for the information and by the time we got back from handing out the flyers, there had already been at least four people knocking on there door asking if they could help them. Way to make a difference team!
For our last stop, we met up with the 14 other STLF busses that had been moving about the country and stopped in Washington DC. Here, we went into the dirtiest river in American and pulled out over 200 tires and 200 bages of garbage! Not to mention the other random things we found (step lader, a bed, toilet seat, etc.). After this, we got to hang around DC! Even though it rained on us, that didn't stop us from checking out the beauties of the capitol.
Five years ago, four students were sitting in a dorm room, wondering what they were going to do over spring break. The classic college party scene just wasn't doing it for them, so they decided to see if the concept of "Paying It Forward" could actually make a difference in the world. Paying it forward consists of doing a good deed to three people, in hopes that those three people then do good deeds to three other people, and so on until we have a huge chain reaction of good things happening all over!
In order to try this, the four students set up a bus trip from the U of M Twin Cities in which the people on the trip would travel to five cities on their way to Washington DC, where everyone would meet (just two buses the first year) and do one big service project.
After a lot of long nights of tiresome planning, the trip was a success. Only four years later they had expanded to several colleges and had 14 buses heading to DC and 12 heading to Texas, all of them full of college students on Spring Break.
Last year Morris set twenty three students on the Pay It Forward tour (including a foreign exchange student from China!). They stopped in the cities of Champaign Il, Lansing MI, Toronto Cannada, Syracuse NY, Baltimore MD, and Washington DC, sightseeing and doing service projects in each one.
This year, Morris' chapter is expanding beyond doing just the trip. We are looking to give back to the Morris community and surrounding area. Hopfully, we will be able to plan and execute a service project once a month.