Seven students from Perham High School decided to make a difference by going on STLF (Students Today Leaders Forever) Pay It Forward tour, over the MEA weekend.
On the Pay It Forward tour a group of students from all over North and South Dakota, and Minnesota left from Fargo Wednesday evening to go on a service tour serving in five towns and ending in Chicago.
Along the way they saw the sights and toured colleges. Perham sent students on both the West Fargo and the Fargo South tours.
From Duluth to Chicago and back
The five students on the West Fargo Bus (Abby Huebsch, Elena Arvig, Chelsea Baumgart, Becca Huebsch, and Casey Rutten) would board the bus in Perham and then head to Duluth to spend the night in the Duluth Zoo, then put up Christmas Lights on over six hundred trees in Superior Park as a service project in Duluth, a project that normally would take all day every day for a week for the few people that would attempt the mission.
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When the students finished their service project they were given the opportunity to see and experience Duluth. From there they would head to Lacrosse, Wisconsin to spend the night in a YMCA and spend the morning helping out at the Lacrosse Salvation Army headquarters, thrift store, and warehouse.
They would then make their way to Elgin, Illinois to clean at the local YMCA and spend the night in the Elgin High School. Their final destination was Chicago, Illinois where they would meet up with two other buses. The 120 students' final service project was working at a Chicago Park spreading mulch in the playground and on trails in the woods.
The 'Pay it Forwarders' were then given the opportunity to experience the great city of Chicago, with the friends they had met just a few days before.
Two students traveled from
South Dakota to Illinois
Jessica Spanswick and Mary Tufton set off on the Fargo South (2) bus, headed toward Sioux Falls, SD where they stayed at Abiding Savior Free Lutheran Church. Their first service project was helping the food bank in Sioux Falls, where the 'STLF'ers surprised the employees at how fast they finished the job. After that they went to see the falls of the Big Sioux River before they set off for Ames, IA. When they got to Ames they spent the night at a 4-H camp. In the morning they set to work at the camp taking shingles off some of the roofs, and cleaning the lodge. From there they went to Joliet, IL where they slept at a Minor League Baseball Stadium and then ended their trip in Chicago with the other two buses working in the park and touring Chicago.
No matter which bus they were on, everyone agreed that these trips impacted not only others lives, but made a difference in their own. The activities and games were all geared toward meeting new people and making new friends. The students were challenged with having to work together on the projects, sometimes with very few directions. But in the end, the students were always ready to find a solution by helping each other out. The students stated they learned not to take good fortune for granted, and they learned about other cultures different from their own. Many said they never realized how much work others put into the communities in which they live, and how they've over-looked so many small acts of kindness in the past.
Next year, Perham has the goal of sending Pay it Forward buses out from the Perham area and encourages anyone interested to come along, or ask students already involved in STLF about their experiences. Interested people can also check out the website blog ( www.stlf.com ).
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The Perham students also plan on making a difference 'starting in their own backyard'. In the beginning, the tour leaders helped the students with what to do, but in the end the students had more and more ideas about how they could make a difference in their own communities.
They're learning how one person can make a difference even if it is a small one. STLF commits to helping others, and doing their best to bring ideas into action.
