The Kentucky Service Trip and Legacy of 'Harlan I'
This past summer, 24 members of the Archbishop Carroll community traveled to Harlan, Kentucky on a service trip to help those less fortunate. The students were upcoming seniors and juniors, and the faculty included Mr. Gennaro, Mrs. Young, Mrs. Bourgeois, and Father Speziale. This special group of people referred to themselves as ‘Harlan 1,’ as this was Archbishop Carroll’s first service traveling to Harlan, Kentucky. Signing up for this trip did not merely entail traveling to Kentucky to do service. Surprisingly, it was much more than that. The students and faculty members left Kentucky with a whole new mindset and outlook on life and were ready for the start of the new school year.
Before leaving for Harlan, the students prepared for the trip by doing multiple fundraisers to pay for expenses that would come up. From car washes, bake sales, and donations from supporters, the students made well over $1,000! These events were just a view of what was to come in Harlan.
The day of departure quickly arrived. Every member of Harlan 1 gathered early in the school parking lot before the sun even rose. The 10 hour journey to Kentucky was filled with singing, dancing, talking, and, of course, napping. Before they knew it, the participants had arrived at a discrete cabin located on top of its own mountain. The arrival to Kentucky fell on a Sunday and, with the school’s priest on call, Harlan 1 started their trip with God in the form of Mass.
The rest of the week was filled with laughter, sweat, blood, and a even a few tears. The students were assigned to reshingle a roof and repaint the outside of a house. Meeting the resident of the house, Geneva Simpson, made the hard work much easier to do. Hearing her story forced everyone to realize the true meaning of the work. If not for Simpson, the experience may not have affected Harlan 1 as much as it did. From falls through the roof, swatting wasps, flat tires, and everything in-between, the trip was an experience filled of unforgettable memories.
On the day of departure, everyone’s mood seemed to have changed. After ending the trip with Mass, reality finally sunk in. Some would think that after spending 24 hours a day working for a week straight everyone would be ecstatic to leave. However, the truth was quite the opposite. Dreading the reality of actually leaving Kentucky, students found any excuse to go back, such as expressing that “I forgot my wallet!,” after 15 minutes of leaving the cabin. This alone expressed how memorable this experience was for both the faculty and students. Building relationships with one another and God, reflecting on life, and spending a whole week in Harlan, Kentucky, this trip was far from what anyone expected. This trip changed both lives and mindsets. Setting a tradition for Archbishop Carroll, this group’s legacy will always be ‘Harlan 1.’
