College of Education - Jackson County

Friday, "KIPP'n it real" ventured to Kansas City in our minivan, "The Tank," as the smallest trip MAB has ever sent out. We arrived to City Union Mission Family Center and got straight to our first service project. Three thousand papers needed to be folded and sorted out. During the first fours, we kept "Poco a poco" in mind, since it felt like we were barely making a dent in the stack of 3000 papers.

The next morning, we woke up bright and early to head out to KIPP: Endeavor. This was Katie's second time going to KIPP for an MAB trip, and it was awesome for her to see the growth of the school. Last time she was there, she helped to sort out books, so that one day KIPP could have a school library. Saturday, we received a tour of the building from Haley, Jay, and Jay's preschool-aged daughter. We actually got to see the library they had made in the past year, and it was awesome to see a project from last year completed! We then got to work renovating a room that had not been used in 15 years. We set out to paint the wall with a quote, but ended up turning the entire room into a break room for "The Wild West" teachers whose classrooms were in that wing of the school. We found tables and chairs from storage, hung up pictures, and painted a quote. Carolyn was the mastermind behind the décor of the room with all her HGTV knowledge. KIPP was also kind enough to give us each a KIPP mug! After we finished the room, and ate some d'Bronx pizza, we headed back to City Union to get back to folding pamphlets.

That night, we went to Joe's KC, and Susan finally realized why Katie could not stop talking about the restaurant in a gas station. If you're ever in the KC area, do yourself a favor and get a Z-Man from Joe's.

Sunday morning, we tried Breakout KC and learned a lot about teamwork in one hour of being trapped in an escape room. After a two-hour journey trying to find food, our gumbiness brought us to Arthur Bryant's. We came back to City Union, and helped to clean up after lunch. While we were cleaning up, we met some of the people who lived at City Union, and it was really awesome to serve our housing site.

Thank you to City Union Mission, KIPP: Endeavor, Mizzou's College of Education, and Mizzou Alternative Breaks for giving us the opportunity to learn and serve the Missouri community.

- KIPP'n it real (aka Carolyn, Katie, and Susan)