ATLANTA 6.26.05

FIRST DAY!

Well it is midnight in Atlanta and the kids have been checked into their hotel rooms. The day was a great start to what will be a fantastic journey. The kids are good and tired right now.

Today was not a very eventful day, rather, a day to get to know each other and what they are about to experience.

All the kids made it to Atlanta on time and we began exactly at 4 PM..all according to plan.
They got started right away meeting each other and they are a great, fun, friendly and interesting group.

The staff ran a few ice breaker games and then we had an improv comedy troupe from Atlanta come and run some group dynamic games for them. This really got the teens working together and listening to each other. After that we had some of the best, and only, kosher Chinese food for dinner. After dinner the kids watched a movie called "The Journey", it was made by a Jewish young man who after college decided to journey across America interviewing powerful people (CEOs, politicians, entertainers, etc.) about the advice they would give the younger generation for a successful life. It is a great way to really get at the theme of the trip. I have become friends with the maker of the movie and he was supposed to come to speak with the kids but was called out of town. After the movie we spoke about the concept of going on a journey and we gave the kids journals for them to keep. We ended the night by celebrating the birthday of one of the participants with a treat made in the South..Krispy Kreme donuts!

Tomorrow looks to be a fantastic day. We are beginning the day by visiting the spot where Leo Frank, a Northern Jewish man was hung by a mob in retaliation for supposedly killing a young girl. From this case the ADL was formed and the KKK was resurrected. It has been a tremendous identifier for Southern Jews. We are being met by an attorney who won a posthumous pardon for Leo Frank. Then we are going downtown to explore the Coca Cola museum. After that we will go to the Martin Luther King Center and pay our respects at his tomb and begin to learn about his life at the King Center and Ebeanezer Baptist Church. We will end the day by going to the Names Project...the national organization responsible for the AIDS quilt. We will discuss the newest information about the war on AIDS and how it is ravaging third world countries and its impact on America.


Good night

Billy