Pre-Trip Service

On February 20th, 2015, when we had our Pre-Trip service meeting at South Campus Commons 7 in the main lounge on University of Maryland’s campus. The meeting started out with an ice breaker asking those in attendance various questions, such as what we know about South Carolina, who our celebrity crush is, what we’re excited about for the trip, what we’re nervous about for the trip, who our heroes are, etc. The purpose of the questions was to get to know each other better, after all, we’re going on a trip with 14 strangers. The questions did help us get to know each other better. For example, we found out that we had commonalities amongst members in the group, such as our favorite movies or how much we know about South Carolina, which was nothing… No one knew anything but more importantly, we were all ecstatic to learn more about South Carolina and the community partners we’re going to be working with. After getting to know one another better, we discussed more of the logistics of the trip, such as our community partners, the types of services we would be doing, the demographics of the community we would be working with, etc. Possible services we discussed were health screenings, being a walking buddy, and building a garden. Talking about these types of services made everyone even more excited to leave for the trip because before this point, not that much was known about the specific types of service we would be doing.

The pre-service consisted of painting garden pots for the community garden we were planning to build in Columbia. Everyone was able to get creative and paint what they wanted on his or her pot. It was not only for a good cause but it was a relaxing bonding activity for the group especially in the midst of finals week. We spread out newspaper on the floors of the Commons lounge to ensure that acrylic paint did not spill on ground because that would cause us to be fined and get in trouble by the building. Our team got right into it and grabbed all the paints needed to put their artistic abilities on display. Silence ensued while everyone was busy painting until one individual reached for bright lime green paint and ACCIDENTALLY spilled it on the one part of the carpet that was not covered in paint. Crisis proceeded… but the team handled its first predicament together very well. Everyone stayed calm and collected and began collecting the necessary supplies needed to clean up the big green mess. Everything from paper towels to foaming Kaboom and everything in between was used and eventually the carpet was spotless (or as spotless as we could possibly make it). After dealing with the chaos, everyone returned to painting their pots and we were able to make enough to fill up an entire box. This meeting allowed us to get to know each other better before heading to our trip, and allowed us to get glimpse of the service we would be doing.

-Maisha and Michelle