By Nick Hixon,St. Dominic Regional High School

What is Mission to Mississippi? Well for those who don’t know, it’s a group of seniors from St. Dom’s that volunteer their spring break to travel down to Mound Bayou, Mississippi to help those less fortunate than us. This year there were 24 students and seven chaperones who volunteered their time. The students were: Devin Case, Heather Couverette, Elizabeth DeAngelis, Renee Duplissis, Bridget Duval, Lindsey Freeman, David Geiger, Andrew Gilbert. Nick Hixon, Meghan Jannarone, Tobias Knausenberger, PJ Koroski, Jonathan Kuhl, Kyle Levasseur, Jimmy Moreau, Amanda Navojosky, Tamiko O’Connell, Malley O’Shea, Charlie Poulin, Benny Salzberg, Nick Stalford, Lucas Tripp, Julie Vandermeulen and Joe Vining. The chaperones for this trip were: Ms. Kathy Little, Mr. Lee Hixon, Mr. Jim Boulet, Ms. Wendy Bourget, Mrs. Jane DeAngelis, Mr. Marcel Dubois and Mrs. Claire Gagnon.

For every student to be able to go on this trip they had to raise $650.00 each, apart from our group fundraisers. We’ve been working towards this trip since last June. We’ve done everything from parking lots at the Festival De Joie, to selling fries and chicken fingers at the Balloon Festival. We’ve worked school activities from working at Masses for donations to concession stands at basketball games. I’m sure that many of you reading this have had one of us come to your house for your bottles, the bottles helped us out a lot–thank you very much! Your bottles allowed all 24 of us to go down south and help that community.

The first person that I know all the students would like to thank is Ms. Kathy Little. She’s been our leader and our friend for this year’s planned project. Thanks Ms. Little!!! This is Ms. Little’s sixth year going down to Mound Bayou. Overall, we were the ninth class to travel to Mississippi.

Okay I have something for you to imagine……imagine driving 1700 miles with 24 seniors, four other chaperones, tents, sleeping bags, and about five coolers filled with food and drinks on a school bus for three days! And that’s just on the way down. Luckily this year there were three bus drivers that helped out in our cross country journey: Mr. Lee Hixon, Mr. Jim Boulet and Mrs. Wendy Bourget. Your time was greatly appreciated thank you.

Well when we got down there it was hot, humid and really buggy. Speaking about bugs, they have mosquitoes the size of tennis balls, and let me tell you, when those buggers get inside your tent…oh boy! You’re in for a treat.

But while we were down south we had amazing breakfasts, lunches and dinners from our wicked awesome chef Mrs. Claire Gagnon. Thank you!

And on this journey we had a really fun camera guy named Marcel Dubois, He got us on camera and in pictures in just about every project we had worked on. You were a lot of fun Marcel, thanks.

This whole trip really was a great way to spend the end of our senior year. Once we arrived in Mound Bayou, we quickly went to work helping out the community by painting houses, making banners, cleaning floors, scrubbing, mopping, building, erecting signs, landscaping, organizing the community center to name just a few of our contributions. It was a great way for everyone to bond with each other before we all go our separate ways to college or work or the army or any future plans. I know I definitely made some friendships with people that I’ve never talked to all four years of high school, that’s a really long time! It was really neat to see the real sides of people outside of school, we were one group, we were a whole, we were a family. There weren’t little groups like there usually are in high schools you know, the jocks, the drama kids, the art kids, the mathletes, the geeks, the popular groups, etc. It was nothing like that down there, it’s like all those walls used to shut out people never existed.

Again I want to say thank you to all my classmates and chaperones that embarked on this cross country journey, I had an incredible time meeting and getting to know all of you. This is something I know I will never forget, for many years to come, keep in touch.

To all the Juniors at St. Dom’s who are considering this trip, it is a lot of hard work, but believe me it’s so worth it! So give it a go, I wish you good luck in your bottle drives, and Lewiston Auburn area… here comes the next class for your bottles…I hope you’re ready.

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