For the 18th annual Make A Difference Day, Team Charlotte gathered together at a small church near the downtown area of Charlotte to make a difference in the lives of young children and adults of a high risk community. Here, we took part in a program called “Shac Saves Lives - Challenge Yourself Project.” This project, led by the devoted member of the church—Pastor Ann—is about having young people help others succeed. Although Pastor Ann had attempted to create a big extravaganza for the day, when Team Charlotte convened together for the actual event, we found ourselves involved in a very small and intimate gathering of people from the surrounding community –not what we expected.
...Nevertheless, some members on the Team gained special insight from seeing and hearing about the hardships that the members of the community had been through. Furthermore, the adults who were in attendance kept expressing how neat it was to see a group of young adults with such passion for humanity and equality give their time to show up to a small event like their own for Make A Difference Day. Overall, the members of Team Charlotte grew from this event by learning how to cope with unexpected hurdles. Even though we had prepared to give educational talks to a big group of teenagers and a big group of elementary school aged children, we were able to shift our focus and cater to the small group of adults and young children in attendance. The true successes were not in the things that Pastor Ann had planned, the successes came from the fact that Team Charlotte was able to remain flexible... So even though the Make A Difference Day event was not what Team Charlotte was expecting, our Team still learned something from the event.

Team Charlotte