You are here: Home > News >United Church News > Blackout becomes a highlight of NYC youth mission trip
Blackout becomes a highlight of NYC youth mission trip
Brittany Burdick and Allen Morrill of the First Congregational Church UCC in North Adams making sandwiches during a mission trip to New York City. They later had to walk nearly 90 blocks during the blackout. |
September, 2003
By Tiffany Vail
When a group of youth and adults from five churches traveled on a Massachusetts Conference mission trip to New York City in August, they never dreamed they’d end up being the ones relying on the kindness of strangers.
But that was before they found themselves caught in the middle of the biggest blackout in US history.
It was the end of a long day of working in soup kitchens and other programs for the 28 youth and 11 adults, and they were gathered at the Greenwich Village office of a mission agency. When the lights went out, everyone assumed it was a problem in that building or maybe that block.
“Then, all the buildings emptied, all the subways emptied – it was wall to wall people,” said Allen Morrill, an advisor from the First Congregational Church UCC in North Adams. “We realized we had to stay together and get back to the youth hostel where we were staying.”
Unfortunately, that youth hostel was on 103rd Street – 89 blocks and eight or nine miles away.
But what could have been a miserable trek through a hot city turned into something of a lesson in humanity.
“We were taken care of every step of the way,” said Morrill. “We were very well cared for and provided for throughout our journey. We might have been in a tough spot – but someone was taking care of us.”
Morrill pointed to numerous examples.
“Along the way, we’d start to get tired and our morale would start to drop, and we’d run into street performers,” he said. “At one point, we got to a street vendor who had exactly enough drinks left for our group.”
The group was also relieved to come to a Unitarian church
that had opened its doors as a place where people could
use the
bathrooms, have water
and take a rest.
“All the businesses and restaurants had signs that
said ‘closed due to power outage,’” said Kelly Channel,
a
youth from the
Church in
the Cove,
UCC, in Beverly. “Then we got to that church and they
had a sign that said ‘come in, we’re open.’ It was
such a welcoming
environment.”
Earlier on, when the group first realized the blackout went beyond the immediate neighborhood, some couldn’t help but wonder about a terror attack.
“We noticed a lot of helicopters around,” said Morrill. “We had gone out into a park and were trying to see past the trees. One of the other leaders and I realized that we were looking to see if the Empire State Building was still there.”
The group got their information by stopping to listen to the radios of cars that were stopped in traffic. Then they reached Times Square, where they listened in on news reports and ended up getting interviewed themselves by two television stations.
“It was pretty cool,” said Thomas Morrill, Allen’s son and one of the youth on the trip. “We got to see Times Square, and the studio where they film David Letterman.”
Police officers directing traffic along the route
offered encouragement to the group, who were
all wearing matching
shirts bearing
the logo of YSOP, the Youth Service Opportunities
Program, the Quaker
program
through
which the trip was organized.
“People treated us pretty nicely – they’d say
‘hey, in the blue shirts, keep it up,’” said
Thomas Morrill.
The trek lasted more than three hours, and by the time the group had neared the hostel at 103rd Street, it was getting dark and they had entered a more marginal section of the city.
“We had to go through some public housing projects, and it was hard to see what was ahead and where you were going,” Allen Morrill said. “People were sitting on their stoops with candles. Up to that point, with our matching shirts, we hadn’t had to worry too much about losing someone.”
The group was thrilled to reach the hostel and discover that a generator was lighting the building’s halls and public areas.
“Everything was dark, but the hostel was lit up – it was a great sight,” said Channell.
The group – which also included participants
from the Central Square Congregational
Church UCC in
Bridgewater, the First
Congregational Church of Natick and
Edwards Church in Framingham – then used
the
few cellphones
they had to call home.
At this point it was after 9 PM, and
the group hadn’t eaten since lunch.
“All the stores and restaurants were closed. We went by a restaurant where we had eaten our first night, knocked on the door, and asked if we could buy bread,” said Susan Dickerman, an advisor with Edwards Church. “They opened up and made us 45 sandwiches to bring back to the group.”
The group’s next dilemma was how to
get out of the city. They had parked
their
four vans
in
Darien, CT, and taken
a train
to New
York to avoid
the cost of parking in the city.
The leaders had just $150 left, and couldn’t
use ATMs
or credit
cards.
“There were no subways running, no
trains,” Dickerman said.
The group at first looked in the local phone book to try to find a UCC church they might contact for help, but they found none listed. The pastor in Darien was away on vacation. Dickerman then called Davida Foy Crabtree, the Connecticut Conference Minister, and explained the situation.
Crabtree put her in touch with Tom Stiers, pastor of the First Congregational UCC in Greenwich. Stiers had to preside at a funeral, but asked the church’s sexton to drive into New York and then drive four of the adults to their vans in Darien.
“One of the youth said ‘who would go to that trouble – who would come and do that?’” Dickerman said. “It was a real chance to show that’s what churches do for one another.”
The group had to give up their planned sightseeing for that Friday, and it took them seven hours to drive from New York back to Massachusetts.
“It was almost like two trips in one,” Morrill said. “The first four days, doing mission and helping people, the groups had come together really well. Then on that day, we really came together. The kids were very good. We didn’t have anybody panic, or be too worried, yet everyone kept right together, knowing we wouldn’t want to break up.”
This mission trip, led by co-deans Carl McDonald, Associate for Youth and Christian Education Ministries, and Jaye Moore of The Plymouth Church in Framingham, was one of four such hands-on trips offered this year.
A total of 82 youth and 35 adults, representing 15 Conference churches, took part in the trips. One group worked in Providence, Boston and Quincy while other groups traveled to North Carolina and Maine.