6.14: Reach - It's kind of Thanksgiving...

Every November, our school's senior class goes to have "Senior Thanksgiving" at a local Amish restaurant. It's been a tradition since the school opened in the early 2000's. The kids are loaded onto buses -- perhaps the last bus trip of their school career -- and we drive 30 minutes to the restaurant. Once we're there, we climb off, push into the huge dining room (you grab a piece of pie on the way or somebody will grab the kind you want), and jostle for seats at long tables. The chaperones sit together, laughing and joking, and each table passes platters of turkey and roast beef and bowls of buttery mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing and bread. Everyone eats until they're stuffed -- for the adults, that's one plate; for the 18-year old boys, that takes a while.

I went last year, and it was nice. My niece was a senior, and I knew some of the kids. But this year, it was a lot different. This class was the first class I had at this school, and I had them as freshmen. For many of them, I've been their mentor/adviser/friend for four years. I had kids playfully fighting to sit next to me on the bus, kids taking pictures with me in the dining hall, and kids joking with me and hugging me the whole trip. It's not a reach to say that these kids feel like family. From band geeks to choir geeks to jocks to cheerleaders, I feel really close to this class of kids.

Before we left, I grabbed pies for some of the teachers back at school. I made plans with Alessandra (my co-adviser for the Class of 2017; we will be in charge of Senior Thanksgiving in two years) -- there is a prayer given at Senior Thanksgiving, and we're going to alleviate that. I got my 55 kids back on my bus and rode back to school.

I hope the kids really did give thanks for this great school system they've gotten to experience. I hope they're ready for their futures. I hope they realize just how lucky they all are; most of them have grown up with exponentially rich parents in a pretty upscale city with opportunities galore. The future is going to be a shock to many of them. The next few months are going to be busy for many of them, and then they're going to have a huge change.

I'll miss them next year, but I know that they'll be experiencing great things. I'm glad I got to be part of this awesome experience.

And a half-day off work and a free, delicious lunch didn't hurt either!

Reach, NGS! Reach!