Home of the Free, Land of the Brave

     For months my FFA chapter was preparing and planning for this day to send eight students to Washington, D. C. for the Washington Leadership Conference (WLC). The ten of us  (my advisor and his wife, Blake, Jon, Carter, Frank, Abby, Meghan, Sydney and myself) packed ourselves into three vehicles at 4:45 in the morning and headed towards the airport to catch the plane for D. C.

My view from the plane heading to D.C.

     After a rough start, our plane was an hour late and half of our group got on the wrong shuttle heading to a different Holiday Inn, my chapter toured the National Museum of American History and the National Museum of Natural History. We rode on the city bus and subway to get around the city, only a few of us have ever been on a city bus or a subway. That was an experience that I am glad happened but I would hate to do it everyday. It was too slow and crowed for me, I prefer driving in my car with the windows down.

    Sinse the bus was running late we missed the first session that night. I was a little nervous, I still hadn't found my room and I had no idea who my roommates were. When our small community groups got together things started to straighten out; I found my roommates and got to meet everyone in my community group. By the end of the week we were more than a bunch of kids from across the country, we were a family.

    The next day we stayed in the hotel and focused on finding our strengths and determining what our purposes are. That night we had a big eye opener, we were able to participate in a Poverty Dinner. All 300 WLC members were sorted into three different groups. The smallest group sat at fancy-covered tables with candles and flowers. The WLC members in this group were served chicken and vegetables I believe, I didn't get a good look. These kids represented the top 15% of the world, were a majority of Americans are living in. The second group (the group I was in) represented the middle class and were seated at bare wooden tables. We served ourselves a buffet, which had pizza, broccoli and cheese, and a cookie. Our group represented 30% of the world population. The final group was the rest of the 300 FFA members, also the largest  group. These members represented the portion of the world in poverty, they were each served a cup of rice. This really affected me, I have always had food to eat and not worry about my next meal. But the dinner showed me that not all of the world is like that.

    On Thursday we left the hotel and traveled to the Newsuem. The Newsuem is basically a museum about journalism, from the first New York Times to Pulitzer Prize Photos. While I was looking at all of the exhibits I learned that a simple photo or story can have a huge impact on the world. After the Newsuem we visited the Capitol, were my FFA chapter and I got to meet our Senator Vicky Hartzler.

We were able to visit Senator Vicky Hartzler and had the chance to tour the Capitol Building. Photo Credit to Cass Career Center FFA Chapter.

    On Friday we toured Arlington Cemetery  and the National  Mall. At Arlington we had the opportunity to watch the changing of the guard and visit the Kennedy family's gravesite. Shortly after we visit the Iwo Jima memorial and then bused everyone to the Washington Monument. In 2011 there was an earthquake that damaged the structure of the monument, and it was still closed because of it. There we ventured off to tour the Lincoln Memorial, the WW2 Memorial, the Vietnam Wall and the Korean Memorial. We also saw the MLK Memorial and the FDR Memorial. My favorite was the Licoln Memorial because the building itself was beautiful. Plus the view is cool when you walk up the steps and turn around you see the pool and  the Washington Monement in the distance.