Dakota Blue Bates
My freshman year of high school was the average one. I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going with the next four years of my life. I got through the year and still had no answer. Then I went on my first Landmark trip to The Ark in Maine. I had no idea what to expect. It was my first time away from my family for an extended period of time. I was thousands of miles away from home, away from California, away from my friends, away from everything familiar. I got on the airplane confused, got off of it even more so. I was the first person to get to the airport from my group, so I sat at baggage claim bewildered. A few hours passed and I met up with my counselor Will Conklin.

After that I went through two weeks that opened up my mind. It was with one the most diverse groups of people I have ever imagined. I learned about cultures I was previously oblivious to. I had deep, personal discussions with people I had known for a week. These people knew more about my life and my beliefs than my closest friends at school did. Something about the whole experience brought out the best me, the truest me, the me that only I know. It might be the fact that you have nowhere to go and that makes you open up. In all honesty, the first time at camp made me regret not having gone to camp before freshman year and it made me want to go for a second time even more.

My second trip was to the Perkins School for the Blind in Massachusetts. During this trip I was more focused on helping out as much as I possibly could and I got a lot done in two weeks. We cleared over a thousand feet of roadside to make it more aesthetically pleasing and we started out on a project to send books to blind children in Africa. My overall impression of Landmark Volunteers is that it exists to help the kids who really want to make an impact. It opens your mind, enlightens your soul and enriches your heart beyond anything else that I have ever tried to do. If I could give one token of advice to a person deciding on whether or not to try out Landmark, it would be to do it only if your heart is in the right place. Don’t do this for a college application, do it to help somebody. Also, remember to pack extra because you will run out of clothes!

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