PLEASANT PLAINS — From cage-diving with sharks in South Africa to climbing the Acropolis in Greece to reaching the mighty Parthenon, Karen Wells has taken her students far and beyond the confines of a small classroom at Midland High School in Pleasant Plains. Next summer, the jungles of Costa Rica will be added to that list and someday, the vast Australian outback, the streets of London and the Great Wall of China.
“The trip to Costa Rica is already planned,” Wells said. “The trips to the other places are tentative throughout 2015, but I feel confident we’ll be able to make them all.”
Midland began the travel project in 2009 when Wells, the school’s journalism teacher and yearbook sponsor, entered a contest at the last minute with an organization called Discovery Student Adventures in Spokane,Wash. The company gave away three all-inclusive high-adventure pilot trips to get a feel of what a trip would be like with teachers and students.
“I almost waited until deadline to enter,” Wells said, “but I finally told myself that I’d never win if I didn’t try.”
After entering, Wells then had to tell the company why she felt her students deserved to go on one of the pilot trips.
“We won the first trip to South Africa in 2009, and that started it all,” Wells said. “Ever since that trip, one of my students, Niki Pulliam, has been pushing for the Italy and Greece trip, so once we got it approved by the school, we were able to start the fundraising projects.”
This was Pulliam’s second trip with Wells. Four other students also made the journey to Italy and Greece: Austin Pearson, Jon Farrar, Sarah York and Bethany Roberson.
“It’s changed me and how I see the world,” Pulliam said.
She said that before the trip to South Africa, she didn’t even know what apartheid was.
“It changes your perspective when you talk to a real human being who tells you stories about seeing his best friend shot in front of him,” Pulliam said. “It made it real for me, and not just something you read about in history books. Before that first trip, I was looking forward to things like flying for the first time, but this go-around, I was more excited about the things I was going to learn.”
Pulliam was also moved by a woman in Cape Town who had lost her home and everything she owned in a fire but was more concerned about cooking meals to feed hungry children.
“She had lost everything, but she was cooking for more than 200 people,” Pulliam said.
Seeing things like that made Pulliam realize she had to do something herself. She spoke with Wells, who told her the best place to start is at home, and that is exactly what happened. Since the trip to South Africa, Midland has opened a food pantry at the school and also organized a yearly event called Midland’s 10 Days of Giving, during which students bring food donations to stock the pantry.
“We fed 17 families this past Christmas,” Wells said. “The donations go to needy families right here in the community. It’s a great way of paying it forward.”
The community also helped out when it came to fundraising for the Italy and Greece trip. The students put on a girls’-nightout event in the fellowship hall of the Mount Calvary Church in Pleasant Plains, where booths were set up featuring various vendors. The students also sold funnel cakes and desserts at various school events and sold Sonic discount cards, donated by Sonic Drive-In, at Southside.
“We also played Santa,” Pearson said. “Parents would pay us $5, and we would call up their kids and pretend to be one of Santa’s elves.”
“Our parents helped out with the rest of the money to go on this trip, and it really means a lot to me,” York said. “I got really emotional when I was up on Mount Etna. I keep thinking, who gets to do this? Who gets to climb an active volcano? It made me really think about what my parents sacrificed to give me that kind of opportunity.”
Wells said the whole group got emotional while on the volcano.
“They weren’t doing this as individuals, not these kids,” Wells said. “If someone was having trouble climbing or needed some help over some of the more challenging places, they stopped and waited for each other or helped each other. They were determined to do this as a group.”
Climbing the volcano was only one of the adventures the students got to take part in during the two-week trip. They toured the city of Athens, where they saw the Old Temple of Athena, walked through the streets of Pompeii where volcanic ash had completely preserved the city, ran races on the original track at Olympia where the first Olympic games were held, rescued sea turtle eggs at Kyparissa Bay, white-water rafted down the Lao River, took a guided tour of the Vatican, explored the Colosseum, threw coins in the Trevi Fountain and participated in a scavenger hunt on the streets of Rome, among other activities.
“My favorite part was saving the sea-turtle eggs,” Roberson said. “We got up at 5 a.m. to relocate any eggs that were in danger of being swept out by the tide, and we set up barriers to protect the eggs.”
Farrar said his favorite part of the trip was visiting the home of the first Olympics.
“You travel down all these winding dirt roads, and then all of a sudden, you’re there,” he said. “I remember thinking, ‘This is it. This is where it all started and why we have sports today.’ It was really something.”
Parents Pedra Roberson and Shelly York enjoyed reading daily blogs the students posted online about their adventures, and also said they believed their children were completely safe while on the trip. They said they had known Wells for a long time, including being former students of hers. They said that made a difference.
Wells said the company really made traveling easy, as well as safe.
“You have a travel guide from Discovery Student Adventures who goes with you on the trip,” she said. “They make all the reservations and take care of all your transportation and adventures, and schedule all your meals. You don’t have to lift a finger. They also have people on call 24 hours a day who check on the different political situations in the different countries to make sure everything is safe.”
Wells also said she couldn’t have asked for a better group of kids to take on the trip.
“Any teacher may be hesitant to take a group of students that far away, but it helps when you set some guidelines and know the type of students who are traveling with you,” she said. “They have to meet certain criteria to be able to go.”
The trips are available to students in ninth through 12th grades. They must have a B average to be eligible and must also not have any major discipline referrals to the office.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity for our students, and I have the utmost confidence in Ms. Wells,” Superintendent Dean Stanley said. “It’s important that we expose our kids to other cultures, and we plan on continuing this program in the future. In fact, we also hope to eventually have some scholarships which can help offset the cost of the trips.”
Wells agrees.
“I like to be able to say that our school offers all the things that a big school can offer, but with a small-school feeling,” she said. “And as long as I can do these trips, I’m going to.”
The students all agree that the trip has changed them in ways they can’t describe and has also brought them closer together as friends.
“It has helped me to see things from a different perspective,” Pulliam said. “I’m more appreciative of what I have, I want to give back more and I’ve also learned that people are the same, no matter where you go.”
Three Rivers, Pages 51 on 08/04/2011