Met School students take tour of South

The students will go to Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina and Washington, D.C., over the next two weeks, and may get involved in a hurricane relief project.

Monday, September 5, 2005

PROVIDENCE -- Fourteen 11th graders from the Met School departed Saturday on a whirlwind trip that will take them to 12 cities and 24 cultural sites in just 16 days.

"A lot of kids have never been outside Providence, so this is definitely going to be life-changing," Cami Carter, the teacher accompanying the students, said in a news release.

The students raised money to cover the trip's cost themselves, washing cars and selling baked goods since last spring.

The 3,000-mile road trip, dubbed "The Trip of Discovery," will take the students to Birmingham, Ala., where they'll conduct interviews about the civil-rights movement. The students will visit the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. They will read Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. If possible, they will go to the University of Mississippi to stand where James Meredith stood in anticipation of being the first African American student there.

"We're making American history come alive for these kids," Carter said.

The students will also help build a house with Habitat for Humanity in North Carolina. And the excursion will double as a college exploration trip, with 10 visits to college campuses planned.

The group may change the itinerary because of damage from Hurricane Katrina, but they may have a chance to join in hurricane relief efforts.

The trip matches the Met School's philosophy of applied academics in the real world. To prepare for the trip, students had to research a city or state on the itinerary. Each student had to read two books relevant to the trip (on history, travel, geography or politics), write five journal entries and complete a project proposal.

The students going on the trip are: Ritchie Abellard, Tyfani Baker, Mike Fonseca, Kayla Indellicati, Julio Lara, Thompson Kuti, Yesenia Mercado and Alex Romero, all of Providence; Danielle Braun of Cumberland, Susana Rego of Pawtucket, Jeff Gabel of Glocester, Yvonne Smith of Warwick, Sam Moehrke of Newport and Greg Elsbecker of North Kingstown.

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