Between forgetting my wallet, knowing I had piles of homework to do, and leaving my own bed to sleep on a floor for a week, I wouldn’t say I was over-joyed about going to Nashville on the alternative spring break trip. I knew that the experience would be great, but the circumstances made me want to run screaming from campus when I saw the bus waiting for us to load into. If only this could have been planned for a week we had class, I thought to myself.
With Reverend Jordan Thrasher as our captain, we started our three-hour bus ride to Nashville. Upon arrival, you could see the confusion in everyone’s eyes. We were in a really nice part of town. What is needed of us here? I wondered to myself.
But after we got settled into the church where we would be staying, Reverend Thrasher went over the agenda with us and informed us that this trip wasn’t going to be as much about helping as it would be about learning.
We would be visiting three nonprofit organizations: Thistle Farms (a home for women who have survived prostitution, trafficking, and addic-tion), Workers’ Dignity (an organi-zation that works for justice with immigrants who are being taken advantage of through low wages), and Monroe Harding (which provides children in foster care with the knowledge, experience and security they need to become self-sufficient contributors to society).
"I knew there was a harsh reality I had never before experienced lying behind those doors"
Helping feet posed with one of the trees planted at Monroe Harding
Photographed by Stephanie Marchant
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