My experience at North Carolina Outward Bound has been the best experience of my life. I am able to create close friendships with the girls in my crew, and face my fears with heights by rock climbing. Being a city girl from Philadelphia having the opportunity to learn, meet and discover my strengths and weaknesses opened my eyes. To be able to get away from the city lights, family ad friends for three weeks allowed me to enjoy nature, challenge myself and listen to other people’s stories with different backgrounds. I chose an all girls crew and I was able to go canoeing and rock climbing with the girls who I became close and related with throughout my course. One memorable event was the instructors allowed us to work together to navigate to the top of a mountain where the campsite would be. This was fun and hard at the same time because everyday at a certain hour of the day while hiking we started laughing a lot. This was because of how tired we were toward the end of the day. We would call it noodle hour.
Eventually we got to the top of the mountain and I could see the beautiful sky and small houses within the wilderness. As the sun set, day turned into night it was the most extraordinary thing. I could see millions of stars as my crew bonded and ate dinner under the cold starry night. It was so perfect that nothing else mattered but me laying under the stars relaxing and the girls who I experienced the good and bad with. I am amazed at how I got through my struggles as well as being changed as a person mentally and physically in a good way over the course of three weeks. I am very thankful for the scholarship you have given me because I learned enough to know what I’m really capable of. Being able to get out of my comfort zone to experience the feeling of hiking for hours, canoeing, climb the highest mountain and get through mother nature’s obstacles I can get through anything that comes my way and do anything I put my mind to. I appreciate a lot of things that come my way and that are already in my life more now. Thank you for letting me be able to experience this with people I have never met and now grew close to at Outward Bound. As well as learning the four amazing pillars that helped me throughout my experience which are self-reliance, compassion, craftsmanship and physical fitness at the North Carolina Outward Bound school.
Sincerely,
Genesis