A staff reflection from Jasmine Simmons, Content Writer for University Marketing and Communications
Plunge Trips facilitated by the Belmont on Mission program through University Ministries gives first-year students the opportunity to learn and participate in the transformative work happening in missional partner cities during Fall Break each year.
When the call for employee Plunge trip leaders hit my email inbox, I was eager to sign up since I have always enjoyed student ministry and service and I saw this as the perfect opportunity for direct engagement with students.
Tennessee cities are relatively unknown to me as a native Texan who transplanted to Nashville last fall to work at Belmont, so I chose a city that I had at least heard of as my top preference: Memphis.
The Memphis team consisted of 18 freshmen, four upperclassmen student leaders called Spiritual Life Ambassadors and a rockstar staff co-leader, Bridget Golden, who did the Lord’s work as we navigated Interstate 40, unfamiliar Memphis roads and the colorful personalities of this brilliant hodgepodge of eighteen- to twenty-one-year-olds.
We met some incredible people who do equally incredible work in the city of Memphis, serving marginalized community members, providing resources and striving to reinvigorate neighborhoods to showcase the rich culture that is often overlooked in what is known to be one of the most dangerous cities in America.
Serve901 plans service-learning trips in Memphis and coordinated our visit. The eagerness and positive attitudes of the Belmont students during our service outings were among the highlights of the trip. Our first service project was working at The Works Urban Farm located in midtown Memphis. Midtown is a food desert, which means people living in the area don’t have access to affordable, healthy food options like the fresh produce grown on the acre plot of ground. Cool, sunny weather was the perfect climate to put our forty-eight hands to work by helping our newest friend Theo, the sole groundskeeper, clear trash heaps and secure plastic coverings over rows of vegetables in preparation for the colder winter months.
Our next stop was Jacob’s Well — an organization that serves people experiencing homelessness and those struggling with addiction. Our group helped serve a meal to the homeless and, to everyone’s surprise, led worship by organizing an impromptu choir accompanied by one of the students on the piano. The students also cleaned the main facility of Memphis Athletic Ministries, an organization that leads trauma-informed sports programming for youth.
A prevailing sense of defiant rejuvenation encapsulated the entire Memphis trip and was most felt during our visit to the Serve901 headquarters at Crosstown Concourse. Crosstown Concourse is one of the many ways that Memphis is working to tell a compelling, new story that positions the city as a place to live, work and thrive. Once a Sears factory, the redeveloped space is now a vertical urban village that houses an art gallery, public chartered school, the Memphis Listening Lab and an array of restaurants, among other things. Crosstown Concourse has successfully paved the way for future redevelopment projects in the city.
Richer than its delicious food is the history that exists in and around The Four Way restaurant, possibly the best soul food I’ve tasted. Listening to Belmont alumnus and history teacher Daniel Warner (Religion and the Arts, ‘13) speak about Memphis’ history, musical heritage and vibrant Black community was an excellent primer for our group before visiting the National Civil Rights Museum.
Another unexpected jewel of the trip was enjoying a Diet Coke with my marvelous co-leader at Bass Pro Shop as the students explored the 321-foot-high pyramid that easily rivals Nashville’s Batman building. The Bass Pro pyramid includes a sky deck at the pyramid’s peak, bowling alley, a premiere hotel and various living and taxidermized creatures from live alligator enclosures to stuffed hogs, birds and a pretty animated bear.
Now that the trip is over, I’m discovering the best part which is ironically happening back in Nashville on campus. Before the trip, I could walk on the lawn without recognizing the students I saw and without being recognized for the most part. Participating in the Memphis Plunge Trip gave me the chance to discover a component of the Belmont community that I have only written or read about – it has provided me with an on-ramp to better experience and understand what it means to belong.
Student Reflections
Max Kamin is a freshman music business major who was motivated to sign up for the Plunge Trip as a way to fulfill his service hour Well Core credits and experience a new city. "I think I made insane connections that will probably last all four years at Belmont and beyond. Serving in the community and the chance to spread the hope and heartbeat of Jesus everywhere we went was also a highlight. To incoming freshmen considering a Plunge Trip I say, if serving is outside of your comfort zone, don't be scared. It's worth it and it is a safe space where everyone is in the same boat. You're all freshmen and you are all together."
Faith and Social Justice sophomore Ryann Sinar was a student leader on the Memphis Trip.
"I've always had a heart for missions and I wanted to get more involved and being an SLA (Spiritual Life Ambassadors) was a way to get more involved. The service projects were very eye-opening, being able to see the needs of Memphis and serving. People often say that Memphis is very dangerous, but we didn't encounter any of that. We encountered a lot of positive attributes of Memphis and worked with different organizations that are trying to improve Memphis and are doing a very good job. It was a really good group of people who went on this trip. We all got close and a lot of relationships were made."
