BEMIDJI — Returning to school after the holiday break can feel like a drag for a spring term that starts in January, but at a Bemidji charter secondary school, high school students have unique opportunities to make an impact.
In February, a group of Trek North high school students traveled to McAllen, Texas, to what had been a shelter serving migrants seeking asylum at the southern border. Trek North Executive Director Erica Harmsen said in an interview last month that as of Jan. 20, the Catholic charities Border Mission shelter transitioned to serve the homeless population instead.
“[It’s] a place that was started by a woman named Sister Norma. And she started it back in like 2016-17 when there was such an influx of people coming to the border,” Harmsen said, referencing the ban on asylum in an executive order from President Trump’s early days of his second term, which is being challenged in the courts.
"When we were there, there was only one woman staying still. She had had a baby, so they were letting her stay while her child was in the hospital.”
Freshman Nathaniel Behrns has taken advantage of other Trek North-sponsored trips that are part of the public charter school’s experiential education mission: to grow resilient, compassionate leaders through experiences in and out of the classroom.
“I know for me at least, going down south [to] Texas and seeing the wall — from what I've heard from family and like the news and people — that all these immigrants, it's like they put them in as Mexicans, but it's not just like Mexican people,” Behrns said. “It's a lot of people, just from all over.”
Behrns and another freshman classmate, Dream Davis, spent their time in Texas doing service at the shelter, like cleaning and laundry.
“One thing that I thought about when I was mopping was the windows were completely tinted, like you couldn't see inside or outside because they got death threats and stuff like that,” Davis reflected. “And I was confused on why people would do things like that.”
Harmsen described the variety of trips the school sponsors that are divided into two categories: service trips or outdoor adventures around Minnesota.
“Our J term is for every high schooler, and that's a week in January, and they can go to St. Cloud on a service trip, to Long Lake Conservation Center, to Bear Head [Lake State] Park, which is a winter camping trip, or to Vermillion, which is a cross-country and downhill ski trip,” Harmsen said.
Behrns said he signs up for a lot of the more service-oriented trips including St. Cloud, where he participated in activities at a nursing home. He also reflected on the opportunities Trek North provides to students regardless of ability to pay.
“It's nice because a lot of people, like their family and stuff, just stay in Bemidji because maybe you don't have time or money to [travel], but Trek lets you do whatever's in the trips and lets you see the world,” Behrns said.
