What happens on the mission trips?
Taking care of yourself to take care of others is a fundamental principle. We take the kids out to work with some of the Native American groups in New Mexico, and we distribute health-and-wellness kits as part of a Fourth of July parade. We do all kinds of outdoor activities, but the kids constantly say their favorite part is the parade. “For the first time,” one of them said to me, “somebody wanted something that we had — and we had something to give to them.” That’s our “transformational experience”: getting these kids outside of their everyday environment, breaking the cycle and planting the ideas that there is something else in the world besides what they’re used to. Most of these guys have never been out of Memphis. What happens when you get back to Memphis? When we come back to the real world, we see the kids once a week, do service projects, and talk. We collect medical equipment from hospitals and doctors’ offices. The kids help pick this stuff up and take it to a warehouse whe
