Career Mentoring Expedition, June 5-9, 2024
Written by: Janean Shedd
Expeditions of Empowerment is known for our outdoor adventures, but when one of the teenage girls in the Female Empowerment Program, which is aiming to help the girls cultivate courage, leadership, and finding their voice, asks to go to New York City, the best thing to do is say, “yes,” and figure it out from there! And that is how, just last week, 9 sophomores, 1 junior, 2 Expeditions’ Staff, and 1 Newark School Staff found themselves on a 7 hour train ride to NYC for a 5 day adventure.
The girls who went have been a part of our Future Women Leaders of Wayne County program all year, and have done LOTS of work in leadership and career exploration this year. Our goal in taking them to NYC was to help them gain confidence and independence, by way of navigating public transportation; learn about known, and also previously unimaginable career paths by by way of interacting with women who’s lived experiences are vastly different than what is common in upstate NY, and our course to play outside in a city space. The first step was getting them all to the Rochester train station by 8:30am on a Wednesday morning. Not only were they all ready to go-they were all ready early!!
The girls knew that once we got to the city they would be in charge of navigating everything, so on the train they made sure to look up subway routes, look again at plans for the week, and try to strategize things. When we got off the train they were ready, and knew just how soon we could get to our AirBnb. It turned out buying Metro-cards for 13 people took longer than anticipated, 
but in the interim time we watched an electric cellist and Aryel took an opportunity to walk by a news camera as it was filming, in the hopes of some fame! Coming back to the group she quickly commented on how normally she would not have been brave enough to do that. The city was already changing them! After reaching the AirBnb in Brooklyn, shopping at a local grocery store, and a collaborative cooking of tacos, the day was just about done. Sakurako had spent a lot of time that evening planning out timing for the next day, so after we got the plan from her, we called it a night!
Day 2 involved a trip to Spotify where we met with Chelsea Medina. She shared about her career path in marketing & advertising and gave us a tour of several of the floors of Spotify’s World Trade Center headquarters. The girls were blown-away by the 
perks of big-city corporate life, and many began to realize just how many careers can be located within one corporation. Leo, ever insightful, made sure to ask what wasn’t great about a place like Spotify, to ensure that we were hearing as complete a story as possible. Chelsea quite skillfully responded by sharing what she found challenging, and how she was working to overcome it. What a powerful demonstration of a skill that Newark School’s Head of Human Resources had recently shared with the girls!
Just outside the World Trade Center building was the 911 Memorial. The girls chose to eat lunch while taking in the scene of the South Tower Memorial. Aryel, a lover of animals, befriended a few local pigeons by sharing her lunch with them. Hailey navigated us to the survivor tree while Shyanne made a quick video call with her dad so that he could share this special moment with her.
Mercer Labs was next; an interactive art and engineering museum/experience where we spent almost 2 hours immersed in others’ creativity and had the chance to let out some of our creativity as well. Based on the girl’s planning, we had a little time to spend before catching the subway back to prepare for the evening’s Broadway show. The girls opted to spend this time following one of their passions – shopping. During that time, some of the girls also had quiet conversation about the overlap of their career interests and new found job opportunities.
Then, back home for an hour to get everyone showered, and dressed, for a Broadway show (Hadestown, with Ani DeFranco as Persephone-talk about female empowerment!). The post-show ride back to Brooklyn proved to be super educational as we had to navigate both a subway and a bus. The girls felt a bit more pressure to do things well since we were navigating at night in an unfamiliar environment. It was a good night of growth, recognition that the city is huge, and that things are navigable even when they’re tired.
Day 3 started off with a 40 minute train & bus ride to Red Hook so we could meet Sylvia at a coffee shop to hear about her path and experiences building a career around international humanitarian work. 
Many of the girls are interested in traveling, for leisure as well as a part of their career, which made them curious about Sylvia’s experiences with international travel. She spoke to many aspects of navigating international spaces, including what it means to try to help someone versus showing up, “to save them.” One particular aspect of Sylvia’s story that resonated with (and also relieved) several of the girls was the idea of being willing to leave a job that doesn’t match your values. It seemed as though an invisible weight had just been lifted from their shoulders.
After a sighting of the Statue of Liberty from the bay, a long subway ride and some NYC pizza led us to Francois-a teacher at the Lyceé Francais-a K-12 international, French Speaking school in the city. The heads of school (one each for pre-K, elementary, middle, and high) met us in the building to share their career journeys with us. 3 of the 4 were women, and some of the stories included moving internationally to work (themes from the morning continued!!). The heads of school did a great job juxtaposing their work at Lyceé with the work they had done in public schools, giving our girls the chance lean into that thought process a bit more.
That night was our dinner out celebration-at a K-Pot place in downtown Brooklyn! It was a new experience for almost all of us, and the resounding ending emotions were of satisfaction and satiation.
Have you ever biked in Central Park on one of the first nice Saturdays of the year? We hadn’t either. And yet, on Day 4, 13 humans from upstate NY walked some rented bicycles to the park, made a plan, and jumped into the fray.
It was WILD! People wereeverywhere, biking, walking, listening to music, eating lunch on the grass…everything you can think of was happening all around us. We made a small loop, with a lunch break in the middle, but the amount of intake about city life was no small loop. To see so many strangers and friends enjoying the same space-not just because they wanted to visit the city, but because they live there and this is what life looks like-that was what made the largest impact. Okay, maybe second largest impact. Biking in that atmosphere was its own saga!
Though they were exhausted, the girls felt that it was really important to visit the American Museum of Natural History (great suggestion, Shyanne!), 
and when it seemed like their plans only allowed us to stay for an hour they pushed dinner time back so they could stay a bit longer and really see as much as possible. 
Once inside, the girls split up into groups so they could hone in on their individual interests. The share-outs afterwards were fascinating!
Later, back at our Brooklyn home, Avé and Talmadgha cooked dinner while others showered and recharged. Over some Alfredo pasta, made from scratch with love, we enjoyed conversation about what we’d all seen and learned. There was a theme of deep satisfaction within everyone for managing to navigate this foreign territory together.
The final day, we were up bright and early to ensure we caught our train on time. To add to the skills the girls have in traveling the train came 3 hours late, and they learned what waiting in a train station is like. They also learned what being on a train that temporarily breaks down is like. There were no large panic moments, no blow-ups or wild behavior. They all kept their cool, and most napped on the train once it was really moving!
To see these girls come back with confidence and joy, despite their exhaustion would have been enough. To hear as they video called our other participant (who was unable to join us) on the way home to share about things and keep her in the loop was the cherry on top! Some will return to the city, others may not, but all of the girls ended the trip with more knowledge of the world, themselves, and how they want to show up in the world. Empowering? Yes. Inspiring to those of us who got to be a part of the trip (both staff and volunteers)? Yes. Conclusion: As absurd as it might have sounded for an outdoor adventure based organization to take high school girls to NYC as a culmination trip, from a leadership development and career mentoring perspective, it was definitely the right decision!
Shoutout to Maggie for her intrinsic navigation skills, Armani for her empathy for others we met along the way and Naomi for her courage in asking good questions when others were hesitant. And shoutout to Allie-for being a staff member that the girls love and trust, who was willing to come with us on the adventure! Many, many thanks!