Traveling out here has been one heck of a shift for me. I’m far from home here and, as someone who has never lived outside of their home state before, moving out to Montana has been a big, massive shift for me. Still, my service here has been a major factor in helping me to adjust and acclimate to this new situation I find myself in.

My service site is TRIO Upward Bound at the University of Montana. Our mission is to provide mentorship and tutoring for students with the endgame being admission to college. I serve, in large part, by visiting local high schools and mentoring and tutoring students there. As such, I have a pretty large amount of responsibilities, a pretty big remit. A big part of my service is getting to know the kids who I serve. That process can take a while. Many of the kids come from troubled backgrounds: messy family situations or unaccepting parents from which they have to hide things about themselves. They have to deal with all that while also going through the calamitous time that is high school. High school, of course, is a deeply formative part of many lives and is when one starts to, or tries to start, charting a course for one’s future. With our goal being college attainment, part of my position is helping kids figure what they want to do with their lives.

One of the first things my supervisor told me was about how to best build credibility with the kids. He said that, at the end of the day, the most important thing was to “just show up.” The consistency of that, of always being there when you said you would be, would mean the world to the kids. I try to provide a safe, quiet place for them. I’ve certainly noticed how much the kids appreciate having a place like that. I’ve been able to bond with the kids, in large part, by being there and getting to know their interests and their fears and worries. Understandably, many of them have fears about the future, in both a micro and macro sense. The world, after all, is scary place, one wracked by climate change and fraught political climate. The kids know what’s going on in the world around them. That world’s not always the easiest place to grow up in. One kid in particular is terrified about the changing climate and how it’ll effect the world he grows up in. To be honest, sometimes I don’t know what to tell him. Still, I try to get the kids to focus on what they can change and recognize that there are things that are outside of our control. Still, I know a that means a lot to the kids that they have someone they can express these fears and concerns too and I’m happy that I can provide that little bit of service.