Midtown Academy Students Navigate the Streets

By Emily Gaines Buchler

Backpackers often stick to the woods. Yet for two groups of backpackers from Midtown Academy, the course was anything but rural: it meandered through inner-city Baltimore. Participants in Outward Bound’s Peer Leadership Urban Expedition, the Midtown 8th graders spent five days hiking city streets, exploring historical and cultural attractions and serving the community. They camped at destinations around town—Clifton Mansion, Solo Gibbs Recreation Center, the Church of the Guardian Angel and Living Classrooms Foundation—and bonded with classmates over team-building exercises, meal preparations and discussions of character, integrity and how to learn from both failure and success. Read excerpts from their memoirs below.

Jordan Gillespie
Day 1. How could I forget that day? One of the longest days I can imagine. I arrived at Leakin Park very excited for a great week. We separated boys and girls. Our counselors were Ms. Liana and Ms. Katie. Then we got started. Read more ...

April Jones
The first place we went to was the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM). We saw artwork from things made entirely out of toothpicks and vases made out of folded origami paper. It was cool to see how creative people can get. Read more ...

Tristan Lee
The sun had finally started to rise and so did those around me. With a tired face, Allan noted that we seemed like old men, waking up with a stiff back and waddling to our toothbrush. After an odd breakfast of powdered milk and Cheerios, we began talking about service. Eric said something that I found very true: “We have so much, so we need to help those who are less fortunate.” Read more ...

Aaliyah Thomas
We talked about everything from domestic violence, TV shows and music to boys, school and what to do when we got home. From this experience, I think my class and I gained more responsibility and insight into what we want for ourselves in the future and how we plan on reaching that goal. Read more ...

Tristan Jackson-Brown
Awesome, fun, new, different—these were the things going through my mind when I was on my Urban Expedition trip. The Urban Expedition challenged our problem-solving, endurance and self-sufficiency to the fullest. Read more ...

Morgan Jones
I was at Outward Bound home base, and I was the first girl to touch the rope, hoping that when I came down all my friends would cheer me on. It was the first day of the Outward Bound Urban Expedition, and I had started and finished one of the course challenges at the base, a metaphor of what would happen throughout this week. We would be away from our families without any contact, hiking around Baltimore, sleeping at different locations and having to be away from the boys … for one whole week. Read more ...