Have you guys ever heard of challenge day/unity day? Well if you don’t know what it is just watch click the link above. So for the past 7-8 years my old high school held a Challenge day once or twice a year where students of all grade, race, gender and age were invited to come experience a life changing event where you learn to look at the world in a new perspective and learn about other peoples’ stories. During my senior year of high school I decided to join the Challenge day team and become a leader to help guide a group a students through this process. We went through months of preparation, fundraising and training; I didn’t think it would be that challenging when that day came (no pun intended), but in reality I didn’t know what I was about to get myself into.
 
Challenge day finally came and I was excited yet nervous at the same time cause it was my first year participating and as a leader. As the “eager” students walked in they all had this look like “why am I even here?” or the “I’m too cool/ I won’t cry” look on their face. As we started, there was a bit of an anxious but cheery vibe throughout the whole room. We first did get-to-know each other activities and talked about happy times or positive things. As the day went on, things started to get on a more serious level and the speakers of the event started talking about the hardships that they went through in their life and how it shaped them into the person they were today. The room got emotional, some started even crying. One of the speakers ended up breaking down because she talked about her alcoholic dad. After the speakers told their story we each got into groups of 5-6 people; each person took a few minutes to tell their life story and the hardships they’ve gone through. There was NO dry eye in the room; people who came into this thinking that they were too cool to participate or who thought they wouldn’t cry ended up bawling their eyes out including me. We all let down our guard and we broke down because being able listen to other peoples’ stories and telling our own made us realize that EVERYONE has a story and that we’ve all gone through some hardships that either changed us in that moment or changed us forever.

 Students from different cliques talked and laughed together; even teachers had heart to heart conversations with the students as well. Everyone actually walked out of the door with a positive vibe and enjoyed the whole event. The thing that sucks the most about this event is the cost because it is quite expensive just to make it happen, but it is honestly worth every penny seeing the reaction out of all these people and to findout who each of them were. I know I'm not going into much detail about each student's story, but this type of thing is just somehting you have to be their to experience yourself if you guys know what I mean. Sort of like going to a church retreat, you just have to be there to experience and feel what's happening in the moment and stuff. Definitely will never forget this day