Life changing

I have been involved with GIVE as an organization since my freshman year at college. I joined the student group of Give at JMU and immediately fell in love with the mission, values and people of Give. I felt so inspired by the upperclassmen and wanted to be just like them.

Quickly after joining Give at JMU I became extremely involved, applied for and was accepted onto the executive board the following semester and have been on exec ever since! I plan to become President after the fall semester.

I had wanted to go on a Give trip ever since I saw that there was a way to travel more responsibly. Everyone wants to go places, but it can be difficult to navigate traveling if you're unsure if you're leaving a good impact behind. Specifically with Hawai'i, a lot of people travel there but have no idea the magnitude of the history and culture within the islands. I wanted to learn about Hawai'i and give back to the people native to the land. I also longed for making new connections, as I had seen my roommate experience beautiful friendships on her own Give trip the prior summer.

Surely enough, the trip was everything I could've hoped for and more. My guides, Traven, Ella, Carly Jo, and Kelly were so incredibly inspiring, knowledgable, wise, funny, caring, all of the above. I never felt unsafe, I never felt doubt, I never felt stupid for asking questions. Meeting them as well as the rest of my volunteer group is one of the greatest gifts I could have in life.

We spent each day volunteering with a community partner and then doing recreational activities such as hiking or playing sports or shopping afterwards. We found joy in such simple things like card games or van rides to the worksites or playing with the farm dogs. The entire trip as a whole was the most transformative experience for me, even with having a lot of GIVE knowledge up my sleeve. I learned so much and I truly feel like a whole new aspect of GIVE has been opened up to me. I could write a book about it. I couldn't recommend this trip enough. My group of volunteers already want to go on another one together. GIVE is a life changing organization that I could not be more happy to be apart of.