The Saddest Cancelled Trip in History (not to be dramatic)

Last year I had to the privilege of going on the LAS in the D trip with my freshman cohort.  As members of LAS we serve on a LEAD team, and I was super excited when I found out I would be returning to Detroit as a member of the LAS in the D lead team.  As a facilitator of the Detroit Service Trip I would get the responsibility of being paired with another member of the LEAD team to help facilitate a group of freshman.

Through planning this trip, the LEAD team was getting really excited because we were working with our three LEAD team co-chairs to help them make the trip the best and most service and education oriented trip yet.  We had a chance to meet with the freshman who were going to be in our groups for the week to do pre-trip reflections to get their minds in the right mindset to learn and help foster change. Things were looking great, and we were ready to go.

But, weather in Michigan does not always let us get what we want.  The Thursday before the trip we found out the Detroit Service Trip had to be cancelled due to weather.  This was extremely shocking and disappointing. I was not only sad that I would not get to experience and grow from this trip, but I was also sad that there was a cohort of freshman who would not get to have the eye-opening experience that I had the year before.

Out of this happening I learned mostly that there are things out of our control.  I had my time to be bummed, but there are ways to learn outside of going on this service trip that I should embrace.  Others may not have been able to go on the exact trip I did as a freshman, but in that in no way means I cannot encourage others to take initiative and try to educate themselves.  I hope next year I get the opportunity to serve on the Detroit Service Trip LEAD team, so I can help make the difference I want.

Which one is the Mentor?

As a member of LAS, during my sophomore year I mentor one of the members of LAS in the freshman cohort.  I had the absolute privilege of having Julie Martin as my mentee.  I have a great relationship with my mentor, Stephanie, and I was worried that my relationship with Julie was not going to be as strong.  I felt like I still relied on Steph a lot, and was nervous that I was not going to be ready for a mentee of my own.  Despite these initial fears,  I did know that I had a lot of love for CMU to share and I was going to be able to care for my mentee and help them with whatever I was able to.

From the start, I started learning more from Julie than I think she even knows.  Even as a freshman entering college,  I have never met a stronger human.  With all of the stress and things that were thrown her way from the very beginning of her college career, Julie showed the ultimate definition of maturity in handling everything.  I have never met a person in my life who can truly take a situation and look at it from every side the way Julie does.  Her strength does not even begin to compare for her heart.  Through getting to know Julie, I have learned that she has the biggest heart of anyone I have ever met.  This is what makes Julie such an amazing leader.  She cares about the people around her and making them grow.  She is the definition of authenticity and servant leadership because she is putting everyone around her first, but she does not lose who she is in the process.  When I am around Julie, I want to be a better leader.

One of the ways I have grown in terms of my leadership skills with Julie is my communication skills.  I have learned to ask what she needed. Feedback is a large part of being successful in any capacity, and our mentor-mentee relationship does not end here.  I have asked her what I have done that has helped her and what hasn’t.  This way in the future I will be able to help her in whatever way is best fit.

I know through these next years at CMU Julie and I will continue to have a close relationship, and I know that I will continue to grow and learn from her as I hope she is learning from me as well.

Walking for a Cure

A part of our LAS protocol is participating in a LEAD team.  There are multiple LEAD teams such as Special Olympics, Competition Day, LAS in the D, and more.  My LEAD team that I was placed on was Relay for Life.  I was super excited when I found out this was my LEAD team because it was one of my top choices.  However, as Relay was growing closer we hadn’t has many meetings, done much fundraising, or decided on what we were doing with our table at the actual event.  Long story short, the LEAD team was struggling and there was an opportunity for me to become the new LEAD team co-chair.  I took this opportunity, and at first I was pretty nervous because I already have a busy schedule.  However, this gave me the opportunity to really dive in and enjoy Relay for Life in a way that is much different than I had I not been put into this leadership position.

With such a short amount of time the other co-chairs and I really were hoping that members of the LEAD team would do some fundraising on their own.  We began fundraising only three weeks before Relay and because of the commitment of the team members (S/0 Allie Rutman, Kelsey Corr, and Riley McGuire!!!) we ended up being 5th out of 59 teams for fundraising.  In a short three weeks we had raised over 1250 dollars for Relay for Life.  As things started to come together, I got super excited for Relay.

The day of Relay was probably one of my best days I have had at Central.  Relay started at 12pm, and from the very start there were people there ready to walk for a cure.  I had not been to a Relay in a really long time and I had forgotten how much fun it was!   It was even fun when we were sitting at the table selling cookies, selling t-shirts, and getting pied in the face.

The best part of the day was when a janitor working the event came up to us after seeing us do the pie in the face, and offered to add a little bit of flare to that particular fundraiser.  He said that when he was a little kid, he saw someone all dressed up get pied in the face and thought it was hilarious.  He said that it has been a life long dream to have someone pie him in the face while wearing a dress suit because he wanted to make people laugh.  He said he would go buy real pies(we had been using paper plates filled with whip cream) and also donate 20 dollars if we found people to pie him.  We got a survivor to pie him at the end of the night and five others attending Relay also pied him.  At the end of the night after he got pied, he was so happy it brought tears to his eyes.  He said he loved that not only could he live out his dream, he had the opportunity to make people laugh, but also donate to such a great cause.

Relay for Life really causes me to sit back and think about how many people in the world are affected by cancer.  You cannot go anywhere or know anyone without seeing/knowing someone who has had a relative or a friend or even themselves be affected by cancer.  Relay gives us the opportunity to help this cause, but also remember our loved ones.

This whole experience has taught me a lot about leadership.  I took this opportunity because I thought that it would help me a lot, and I didn’t really think much about how it would give me the opportunity to take a larger role in helping the community of people that Relay effects.  During the Luminaria ceremony, I kind of realized that the best part of this experience was being able to see that guy make people happy and see the survivors do the survivor lap.  This kind of opened my eyes that though leadership does help me grow, that is just a secondary benefit.  The best benefit of Leadership is the influence that we have on others and the differences we can make in the world.

How We Made a Difference in Detroit

The “LAS in the D” trip was an action packed 30 hours that was filled with tons of excitement.  My entire LAS cohort packed onto a bus and headed towards Detroit with lots of enthusiasm and not really knowing what to expect.  Little did we know that this short trip was going to be one to remember.

Our first stop was to the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy.   While at the academy we were
split into different groups that had two LAS in the D Lead team members, five LAS students, and students from the academy.  We got a chance to spend a few hours at the JLRA and facilitate leadership activities with students. Being around these kids was such a fun experience because they each had such different personalities, but they were still there to learn about leadership.  Each of the students we worked with were so positive in whatever we were doing.  One of the activities we were doing involved using long string attached to a piece of plastic that is holding a kickball to move the kickball across the room.  Having done this activity before and knowing how frustrating it can be, I expected to see the students get kind of frustrated.  However, they were extremely positive and were constantly trying to think of better ways to accomplish the task.  This was one of my favorite parts of the day because it made me do a lot of self-reflection because I know often I get annoyed with doing small tasks like that and focus on the frustrations, but they all made it seem so much easier if they just kept a positive attitude.

There was a girl who joined our group a little later after we had already done our introductions, and you could tell she kind of felt out of place.  Throughout the activities she participated and gave full effort in the activities but she remained  pretty quiet throughout the entirety of the day until the end of our time at Jalen Rose.  Before we left, all of the groups met together in their gym and were discussing some of the things throughout the day.  The girl was one of the first students to stand up and share her opinions and reflect on how the day went.  Though I had only  met her a few hours before, I felt so proud that she had stood up and talked.  Since she had been quiet the majority of the day, I didn’t expect her to get up and share how the day had impacted her, and it showed to me how large of an impact we were having at the academy even after only being there a few short hours.

After leaving Jalen Rose, we ventured into the city.  As we drove into downtown Detroit, I watched out the bus window and slowly had this feeling of extreme excitement race through me.  Though I had a ton of fun at Jalen Rose, I was so excited to the see the city I had heard so much about but never experienced.  I love cities, and as soon as I started seeing the tall buildings and busy streets I couldn’t contain my excitement. We arrived at Quicken Loans and we ate some of the BEST pizza.  I never really knew much about Quicken Loans and expected them to be some boring business company.  However, when you walk into their offices, you learn they are anything but boring.  Their offices are fun and bright.  We listened to their Vice President, John Fikany, talk about Quicken Loans  and I was instantly inspired.  Hearing what he had to say about wanting to help rebuild Detroit.  They knew why they were doing what they were doing, and they had so much passion.  We got to tour Quicken Loans, and I was fascinated with what they were doing.  Each space was so different and so innovative.  Seeing Quicken Loans really made me think about what I was doing with my time and my life.  I know what I want to do, but seeing Quicken Loans help Detroit made me realize I can do so much with what I care about as long as I have a passion.  If you care about something, it is easy to put in the effort to make a difference.  John Fikany wasn’t doing this for money or for status, he was working at Quicken Loans to make the city a better place.  I can honestly say that touring Quicken Loans has motivated me more than any other experience has.

After leaving Quicken Loans, my fellow LASers and I got a chance to visit the Detroit Institute of Art.  I love art museums because they are such an insightful way to view culture.  I walked through the DIA trying to see as much as possible because I had never visited before.  My favorite piece of art was found in the Modern Art section.  It was named “Autobiography: Air/CS560”  It was super cool because it was made of different phrases that combined to represent the inhumanity of man, and it focused a lot on societal issues in the world today.  I thought that was pretty interesting.

We then got the chance to have a big slumber party in the DNR’s Outdoor Adventure Center.  My whole cohort took this opportunity to act like little kids and play sardines!  It was super fun exploring the Outdoor Adventure Center and learn how they were making a difference.  My favorite part of the Outdoor Adventure Center was that they had a poster board that had their “why” on it.  They had the golden circle picture from the Ted Talk on leadership, and then multiple people involved in the Outdoor Adventure Center had their own why statement on the board.  It kind of made me realize that leadership truly does go full circle.

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early prepared for a full day of service.  We headed over to a Detroit-based agency called CASS, where we were split into four groups to do different service.  One group helped prepare food, another made doormats out of illegally dumped tires, and another helped sort donated clothing.  My group got to head over to a separate warehouse where we got to work with recycled paper and cardboard from other companies.  We shredded the paper and put it into what was like a hay bale made of paper.  I also helped clean their bathrooms.  It was so cool because in the middle of this super busy warehouse was this big sign that said “Fighting Poverty. Creating Opportunity.”  We got to learn about the history of CASS and all that they do, and I didn’t want to leave.  I felt like I could have helped so much more if we could have just stayed longer.  The people at CASS devote their life to making the world and specifically Detroit a better place, and I felt like we could have easily dedicated more time there.

While my group was walking to the warehouse though, I viewed a lot more of what I would mentally picture when I hear Detroit.  It was like as soon as we left the city to head to CASS we were surrounded by run down houses with no yards and abandoned stores.  My eyes were opened that this isn’t what Detroit is, but there are still parts that need a lot of help and rebuilding.  It was so crazy to me how different two sides of the street could look.  On one side was the super nice brick building with a tall fence, and on the other were tightly-packed houses that looked like they needed a little  TLC. Working with CASS was easily 100% my favorite part of the trip to Detroit.

The trip to Detroit  made me want to do MORE—more service, more bonding with my LAS cohort, more learning about Detroit, more growth…more.

Get Connected, FOR FREE

As a part of LAS we got the opportunity to go to the Connections Conference at Great Wolf Lodge in Traverse City, MI.  Though LAS goes to the conference, it is open to anyone on Central’s campus that would like to go.  When we got there the first night, we were introduced to the groups we would be working with over the course of the next two days and then were given free time to go to the waterpark!  The next day, we woke up early and got right to business on learning new information about leadership.  We were allowed to pick four different speakers we wanted to go to throughout Saturday.  I chose “Branching Out: Netflix and No Chill”, “Leadership Through the Eyes of Disney”, “Growing your roots”, and “Friendship in Leadership.”

“Branching Out: Netflix and No Chill” was one of my favorites out of the sessions.  It focused on disconnecting from social media and our technology in order to connect with others.  We ended by doing an activity where we colored leaves based on  how much we time we think we spend doing a certain activity.  There were six different branches and the leaves pertained to whatever theme branch they were on.  The six different branches were physical, spiritual, psychological, emotional, intellectual, and social.  I loved this activity because it help me realize that sometimes I need to focus on my own health both mentally and physically a little more.  This session focused a lot on not only connecting with others but connecting with yourself as well in order to keep yourself healthy.

“Leadership Through the Eyes of Disney” was really fun because I am a big Disney fan.  We first began with naming our five favorite Disney characters and then choosing which one we thought we identified with the most.  I chose Anna from Frozen because she is goofy and has a very optimistic look on the world.  I feel like her personality matches mine pretty well.  After that we picked our top 10 values that were eventually narrowed down to our number 1 value.  Mine was Family because I am extremely close with my family, and I believe that the value of family includes friendship, love, and trust.  After picking our value they had us think of the values of Disney character and see if the Disney character we chose would have the same value.  I was so shocked that I had never made the connection before that the thing me and Anna have most in common would be our most important value.  I liked the session a lot because something I hold very important in my life is my values, so I love whenever I get the opportunity to talk or think about them and what they mean to me.

“Growing your roots” is a session that dealt a lot with what you look for in a mentor, and what you need to be a successful mentor yourself.  I chose this one because I know in a year I will be a mentor to my LAS mentee, and I want to be able to be the best mentor I can be for them!  We spent a lot of time discussing who our role models are. I have a lot of very prevalent mentors in my life, so we discussed why they are our role models and what traits and things they do that help us in order for us to be able to understand what may work when we are mentors to others.

“Friendship in Leadership” was my other favorite out of the sessions.  The session used Harry Potter to help teach us about healthy relationships and leadership.  I love Harry Potter, so I knew I would enjoy this session when I picked it.  We learned what is known as “Comfort in, Dump Out”.  This basically shows us how to deal with tough situations and how they may be affecting us and others around us who are also dealing with the same situation.  The picture below shows how you should deal with the situations.  You should spend time comforting the people who are more inward on the circle, but you should only vent or explain your feelings of being hurt to people who are more outward of you on the circle.  We then did role playing with the Harry Potter characters where we were each assigned a character from the Goblet of Fire and were told to interact with each right after *SPOILER ALERT* Cedric is killed by Lord Voldemort! I was Cho Chang, so I could vent about how upset I was to everyone except for Amos(Cedric’s dad) and Harry.  However, the only two people who could vent to me were Amos and Harry.  This is more difficult in real life because it is harder to identify who is truly closer to a situation.  The “Comfort in, Dump out” ideology is a very useful method with having healthy relationships and learning how to be a source of comfort for others.

I learned a lot about not only how to connect better with my cohort, but also to be able to connect to other organizations on campus.  The things that I learned are things I can use in everyday life, especially the “comfort in, dump out” theory.  I feel as if I am more able to be conscious of others feelings in a situation with that theory in mind.  Overall, the Connections Conference was a blast, and I hope next year I can go back as a facilitator to help others enjoy the experience and learn as much as I did.

The Spark that Started the Fire

The Spark Leadership Conference is a conference that Central’s Leadership Institute puts on every year. The conference is open to anybody on Central’s campus that would like to expand their knowledge about leadership. You can find more information about the Spark Leadership conference here.

When I first got there we were split into groups, and asked to fill out this questionnaire sheet about leadership.  After we all were finished with the questions we were told to right down how many answers were written in squares, circles, triangles, and diamonds.  After we calculated where our answers were, we were told that each of the different shapes represented different leadership styles.  The four different styles were spirited, direct, systematic, and considerate.  My two highest scores were very close with only one point difference.  My highest score was spirited, and my my second highest score was considerate.  This means that typically my leadership styles is spirited. Honestly, this did not shock me at all because when I am in a leadership role I feel like my goal is to make everybody enthusiastic about what we are doing and to enjoy the task.

The rest of the day we did teamwork and group activities with the group we were split up into, and it really showed how the different leadership styles, though they are all very different, are just as needed in a group.  It also highlighted how leaders lead in a diverse number of ways, and no way of leading is better than the other.  Though I was not shocked about what my specific leadership style was, I had never thought about it too much, and I had enjoyed getting to learn about what the different leadership styles were and their importance.  Because of this, I will now be able to improve my leadership by improving the other forms of leadership, so I can become a well-rounded leader.

(LAS)ting Bond

Since I am a Leadership Advancement Scholar, I am given a mentor from the LAS Cohort above me.  Our mentors are there to guide us and help us and be our big siblings away from home! My mentor is Stephanie, AKA the coolest person I have ever met.

Each year the new Mentor/Mentee pairs go on a Mentor/Mentee retreat for a weekend where we do team building exercises and really get to know each other.  Before the weekend I had met Stephanie and got food with her a couple times, but I didn’t really feel like I knew her too well yet.  After the weekend, however, I feel as if I had met my (slightly cooler) twin.

We were asked to each make a giant road map on a poster about our lives, and to bring it with us to the retreat.  When we first got to the retreat we broke off into smaller groups and shared our road maps with each other.  My road map was the outline of a giraffe(my favorite animal) that was filled with all of the things that help make me who I am today.

 After sharing our road maps, each group went off and did different smaller leadership activities or conquered the high ropes course.  That night Steph and I got picked to go on a big group canoe trip that ended up being a memory I will never forget.  The trip started off a little hectic as our bus ride to the river turned out to be a little on the dangerous side.  When we got to the river, we were given our canoe, and it didn’t take long to realize that our canoe had a leak and was taking in water.  We were told to continue on the trip anyways and hope that our canoe would stay afloat.  The first hour was as close to smooth sailing as you can get when you have a sinking canoe.  The view was beautiful and the company was amazing.  After about an hour the sun began to set and our canoe was still filling with water at an alarming rate.  We began to scoop the water out of our canoe as we moved along the river in the dark.  However, scooping the water out of the canoe became pointless because we then were stuck in a giant rain storm in the dark.  We couldn’t see very well and we got stuck on a rock and had to get out and push our canoe to deeper water.  When we finally got out of the river, everyone was soaked and freezing.  The best part of this whole unfortunate trip, however, was that we laughed the entire time.   All of these things were going wrong, but Steph and I kept a smile on our face the whole time because we knew we were making the best memories.

The retreat really helped me bond with not only my mentor, but with my whole cohort.  I loved getting to learn about everyone and learn how amazing and fun my mentor is.  I cannot wait to see what memories I make with everyone throughout the years as a Leadership Advancement Scholar.

A Bear…in a Safari?

Growing up, I was always extremely independent and had no fear of going off into the world on my own.  However, as the realization that I would soon have to move away from the town and house that I had lived in my whole life and away from my family I slowly started to sense fear creeping into me.  I was scared of leaving my two best friends; both of which I had been friends with since I was a little kid.  My home, Jonesville, had always been a place I never thought I would miss, but the thought of leaving my little town scared me.

Despite the fear, I packed up and moved 2 hours away to a town that my 3 older siblings had experienced before me with optimistic thoughts about what I was going to face.  I wanted these next years to be some of the best memories of my life.  I wanted to make lifelong friends.  I wanted to know what all my siblings were talking about when they said that CMU is the best college in the world.  I realized within a week that all of these things I wanted were going to happen and that my life at CMU was going to exceed my expectations.

My first week at CMU was filled with speakers and team building exercises.  Leadership Safari is a program put on by CMU that is intended for incoming freshman and transfer students who want to make new connections at Central and build their leadership skills.  Everyone attending Leadership Safari is placed into small groups that are named after animals (mine being Team Bear) and have a team leader.  Throughout the week you and your team go to motivational speakers, slam poets, and comedians.  You also spend a lot of time working on team building with your team, and you are able to really get to know your fellow team members through discussions after each event.

Mama Blair and her cubs

The part of safari that had the largest impact on me was the speaker we had the last night.  When I was younger I would watch The Buried Life on MTV.  The Buried Life was a show featuring a group of guys who spent their lives checking off tasks from their bucket list.  So, when I heard that Ben Nemtin, one of the guys from the Buried Life, was going to be our speaker, I was super excited.  To some it may seem cliche to have someone sitting in front of you telling you to live your dreams, but the message that was being given was a lot deeper than just “whatever you want to do, do it.” Sure, following your dream was a large part of the message, but I think that the most important message in following your dreams is to make sure you don’t let fear control your life and keep you from your dreams or any other great opportunity.  Pushing past your fear can lead you to not only change your life but also inspire others.  While he was speaking, Ben put a microphone in the middle of McGuirk Arena for people to come down and tell all of safari what they wanted to do before they died.  Naturally, a bundle of people came down to the microphone and shared, but there was one girl who inspired me the most.  She came down to the microphone and said that before she died she wanted to sing in front of a full stadium.  And then she did.  She sang in front of almost 2000 people at safari.  You could tell she was nervous at first, but as the song she was singing continued she grew more confident. Everyone has a dream, and it is easy for everyone to say what they want to do before they die because no one thinks they are going to die tomorrow.  Everyone thinks that living their dream is something that is far in the future that they don’t have to worry about today.  However, this girl had the guts to live her dream that day.  As I listened to her I felt goosebumps growing on my arms because in that moment I was so inspired to live my dreams too.

As someone who was filled with fear before I moved in, I can honestly say pushing through the fear of a whole new world and life has allowed me to make a new home out of Central Michigan University.