Trip To Memphis Essay

The thing that surprised me the most about the spring break trip was the city of Memphis. I had much higher expectations for the city. Although those expectations were not fair they were nowhere close to being met. I visited other parts of Tennessee before but never Memphis, so I had high expectations for the city since I had been down south before. The vibes I received from Memphis were poor. The food wasn't extraordinary. The people weren't open to new black people in the neighborhood. I didn't feel the “southern hospitality.” I had the opportunity to talk to a woman who looked at the church we were doing service at and she told a few students and myself about the changes that she has seen over the years in Memphis. The impact that volunteers …show more content…
Students get to impact the communities that they are working with and also many students find their passion through this program. I know a number of people who have found their niche in helping others and through that they discovered what their future goals are, but prior to that the students were unsure of their future. One action that I plan to take in order to get more involved in my community is stay connected with everything that is going on in politics. Vote for local elections. Recognize who my local representatives are and the impact that they are having on me and my community as a whole. Often we tend to care about everything that is going on on a national level with politics , and that's okay, but I tend to forget that there are policy makers right in my backyard that are affected the people that are closest to far, in terms of proximity. Politicians get a bad wrap, rightfully so, but that doesn't mean that I can’t be engaged on what's going on in my neighborhood whether I completely support a candidate for a local position. Recently I have been more informed about the people in Johnson County who represent us. While in Memphis we had visited the mid-south peace and justice center and there was an activity where we split into two groups and we constructed the perfect