Fly to Washington DC | Li Wang

I am so excited to go to Washington DC! This is my second year to go to Alternative Spring Break Service trip. Last year today is the day we get back from New York City, and today is Greg Rubber’s birth day! (one of the Alternative Spring Break Service trip 2016 participant). I can’t wait to get to know every one, and get to know the community in Washington DC. This Tuesday, I just have a new niece. I am so excited to see her again when I get back from DC!!

ASB 2016 

Play Card at Airport

My Niece

 Washington DC Airport

We are flying

Im on my first ASB trip. Im excited an anticipating what is to come. Ive traveled alone alone before, but neber to a place I have never been to do something I have only done at home. I am grateful and thankful to be able to go on this trip. I cant wait to see how this may impact my life and expand my knowledge on homelessness and food insecurities. I am ready!

I’m excited

I am currently sitting in the airport writing my blog while the rest of the spring breakers are playing card games to pass the time. I’m happy that this is the group I’ll be helping the DC community with. They’re a fun and very enjoyable group, and I’m excited to see what comes for us in DC. My expectations of what to expect in DC are hard to predict, but I imagine I’m going to have fun and I’m going to help a lot of people. I’m very grateful to be travelling to DC and I hope I can do my best to help their community.

Lift off | Katie Deutsch

As our group waits to board our flight in the next hour, I’m becoming increasingly excited to begin this year’s service-learning adventure. I was fortunate to have gone on the D.C. alternative spring break trip of 2015 (group pictured below) and can’t wait get back to work with YSOP again. I’m looking forward to all memorable service experiences to come and am anxious to meet the many new faces we’ll be serving and working alongside. Here’s to a great service trip! 

 

Alternative Spring Break team of 2015 with Ms. Dawson (the sweetest woman in the District of Columbia).

It’s Time | Kellie Deutsch

The time has come. My bags are packed, I have my coffee in hand, and we will be meeting in the airport in about an hour. We will land in D.C. in less than 9 hours. I am feeling excited and anxious. I am excited to embark on this service-learning trip with a fun group who has proven to provide thoughtful and challenging discussions in class while being able to be silly and have fun. I have valued our time in class, learning about hunger and homelessness, and I have come to realize how important it is to take time to learn, prepare, and reflect before going on service trips. I am anxious about the unexpected though. I have gone on Spring Break service trips for the past four years with my church’s high school youth group, but this trip will have a different focus, consist of a different group of individuals, and provide different lessons to be learned.

Last night, I spent some time reflecting and praying. In doing this, I was able to prepare my mind and heart for this coming week. Through this trip, I hope to be humbled. I hope to be open to individuals and their stories. I hope to be changed. I hope to learn what it means to serve.One thing that I made sure to acknowledge while reflecting is that I am not going to Washington D.C. to save the world. Having the mindset of “saving” people who are hungry and homeless is damaging to others as well as myself. Rather, I am prepared to serve others in the small ways, and I am expecting to learn mountains from the individuals I have the privilege of meeting.

When I applied to go on this trip, I wrote in my application, “I desire to serve, learn, and grow.” This still holds true. I hope to serve full-heartedly with compassion and humility. I hope to learn as much as possible about hunger and homelessness in our five days in D.C., but I also hope to learn more about myself and the privileges that I have. I hope to grow as an individual and come back to Wichita with a better vision of how I can serve my community.

Pre-trip Blog

The day is finally here! I have been anxiously waiting, preparing, and packing for this day to arrive! We will be flying out of Wichita at 5:50 this evening, and I couldn’t be more excited. This past week I was asked many times what I would be doing for spring break and most people expected for me to be somewhere at a beach. However, they were all so pleased to hear what our group will be doing during our “time off”. I’m very grateful that this time I get to fly to D.C. (Last time I had to ride a bus for 2 days), and get to see the wonderful city again.

My sister has gone on an Alternative Spring Break trip before and was giving me pieces of advice here and there about the people I might meet, which was very helpful. I’m feeling quite anxious to getting my hand dirty, and being able to help a community in need. Washington, here we come!

 

 

Pre-trip Feels | Yasas Vithanage

I’m not the best when trying to elicit emotions through writen text so I thought I’d make a Vlog instead.

EPISODE 0: ASB | PreTrip Feels

Final Boarding Call | Baylee Brown

I honestly can’t describe how excited I am as this exact moment.  In about an hour and a half I will be loading up to head to the airport, hopping on a plane, and heading to Washington, DC!  This past week has been a whirlwind of emotions, between midterms, packing, cleaning, and just life.  Throughout the week a lot of people have been asking me “Baylee, are you excited for your Alternative Spring Break Trip?”  For some reason all I can say is I’m nervous, I’m the type of person who feels comfort in knowing exactly what is going on.  However, there is so much uncertainty with what I will be doing for the week, I won’t find out until tomorrow! Although, I am nervous about stepping out of my comfort zone and learning more about homelessness and hunger. I have to remind myself that this experience is for me to learn and grow as a person, but most importantly I am going there to serve the community and it’s members.  The one thing I am going to tell myself during this trip is ” You are here to serve, you are here to learn, and you are here to help yourself and help other people grow.”

T-5HRS til Takeoff | Ari Kopycinski

It hasn’t really hit me yet that we’re actually going on this trip. I’m sure there will be a moment in the airport where I’m like “OH NO IT’S HAPPENING,” but at this point, I’m just going through my usual pre-trip routine of packing everything I don’t need and cleaning every inch of my room and bathroom. I hate coming back home to a messy house, and I love immediately falling asleep in clean sheets after “roughing it” for a couple days. So all in all, today has been pretty chill aside from the stress of packing, and I am really anticipating taking off in the plane today.

The one thing I’m pretty nervous about it how I am going to react and reflect on the situations that we will encounter on this journey. This entire trip is going to be a learning experience for me, and everyone knows that with that learning comes some growing pains. I know that I will not be perfect in my service on this trip and that knowledge has me very anxious. I want to do a good job, but mostly I want to be able to become more cognizant of the people that are enduring these trials of homelessness and food insecurity.  I want to be able to provide service based on their needs instead of my own. This trip is my first step into becoming a better service provider, a better community member, and (hopefully) a better person.

Next blog is coming to you straight from this nation’s capital!

Pre-Trip meditation | Nibras Karim

I am incredibly excited for this trip. I know that in the days leading up to this trip, I would repeatedly go through what to pack and try to plan out the week, even though we don’t get our itinerary until we get there. I have even struggled to fall asleep because I’m so excited.  I do have to remind myself why we are going to D.C. First and foremost, it is to learn. Externally, by learning about the world around us. And internally, by learning more about what our role is in the world. Second but equally as important, we are here to serve. This is our chance to practice wholehearted self -giving for a whole week. I’m excited to see what I will learn!