From ATL to STL and back to Coe!

Dear Readers,

Spring break was a pretty good time! As I have told you all before I really was looking forward to going on spring break and I was also looking forward to being able to try something different. Thankfully I had the opportunity to do just that this spring break. I have done my fare share of community service since I have been at Coe. Seeing how all First Year Students must complete 20 hours of community service; but I also spent my time last summer here at Coe serving as an AmeriCorps Summer Vista Associate which allowed me to continue my volunteerism efforts. However this spring break was by far different from any other service activities I have participated in.

Over break I was able to visit new places meet new faces and all that good stuff while gaining an experience I do not believe I could have gotten from any other spring break opportunity. ASB (Alternative Spring Break) trip opened a door for me literally, while in Atlanta Georgia the group of 13 students as well as our three faculty advisors served the local community of Atlanta through an organization called DOOR (Discovering Opportunities for Outreach and Reflection) doornetwork.org this organization set us up in a local church right outside of downtown Atlanta called St. Marks.But first let me back track a little bit. On the 14 hour drive down to Atlanta though we stopped in Nashville Tennessee for a night which was pretty sweet. We were able to eat dinner at the Nashville Palace and stayed in a hotel.

The next morning we continued on the rest of our journey until we arrived in Atlanta where like I stated earlier we were lodged at St Marks Methodist Church through the DOOR organization. What DOOR does is provide a chance for groups like ours to connect with local nonprofit organization in the community and allows us to provide volunteer service. Some of the places we were able to volunteer were at a few transitional homes for homeless or abused mothers, also at an elderly home, and my group also spent time in a soup kitchen and working at an Urban Farm. One of the cool things about door was the reflection opportunity. At the end of each day following dinner we sat down with the two leaders of DOOR Atlanta; David and Megan. Both of these people make sure that we understood the importance of our service and also gave us the time to express the things we learned, liked, disliked or would like to incorporate into our local COEmunnity here in Cedar Rapids.



Besides all of the pretty neat service experiences we also got some time for exploring and tours and other cool stuff like that. One of the first tours we went on was of the CNN Headquarters. The only sad thing about this was they did not allow us to take pictures on the tour so I only have photos from outside and the massive lobby area.

One of our goals was to go to one of Atlanta's top BBQ spots. Big Daddy D'z. I got an awesome plate of food it was pretty tasty almost as good as back home.

One of our next stops was a little Ice cream place downtown. It was nice as well but I think I may still like cold stones better!

Our second tour was to the Martin Luther King JR center in Atlanta. This was probably my favorite thing over break. Being able to see his home and tomb was something I will remember forever.

Another neat place we stopped to eat while in Atlanta was called The Varsity it is only in two locations in the world, one being Atlanta and the other being Athens, Greece I thought that was pretty sweet.

One of our last tours of the trip was a place called the Underground. It was like an underground mall pretty much but it had a lot of history. Our tour guide gave us a nice long tour and speech on the history of Atlanta and how it came to be.

P.s. A good food place in the underground was Johnny Rockets!

After all of those good times in Atlanta we headed out to St. Louis for the St. Patrick’s Day parade. It was a pretty fun time with tons of people!

Overall the trip was fun but I am glad to be back at Coe! The weather here has shaped up nice and I just recently started golf season as well as kicking the soccer ball around outside! (which is pretty enjoyable)





Well I do not want to take up to much of your time but I will talk to you guys again Tuesday for sure!