ITC was started in 2013 by Alex Taillie.  I saw students everyday who had barely left their communities and had a very jaded and lacking view of the world.  I knew I could do something about that.  While out to dinner with a couple colleagues I posed the question of taking students on a trip.  Not to MS or AR but to Europe.  The colleagues agreed that it would be fun but had a lot of skepticism and questions about how it could get done.  

Well, after about 4 days there was a trip all planned out and a flyer with an itinerary and cost all ready to go.  I selected a trip to Barcelona and Madrid.  Little did I know what I had signed myself up for.  It would be the most challenging but yet most rewarding journey I have ever had in my life.  I was working at an inner city school in Memphis, TN that had recently made national news for the number of students who were pregnant.  I knew we needed to change the narrative and find something positive for the students to cling on to.  

This turned into the International Travelers Club.  When I started asking around a lot of the students were very excited and wanted to go but with two main fears.  How do we pay for it and do we have to take a plane?  Apparently, Samuel L Jackson and his movie Snakes on a Plane was all too real for many people.  

In order to make that first trip happen we did just about anything we could to get the money.  One of the methods was holding up signs at certain intersections throughout the city.  This drew some negative feedback as we were told that it is begging and we are no better than the panhandlers who were doing the "same."  The crazy thing is that of the $39,000 of our total raised $23,000 came from doing this.  We had run ins with the police and drunk locals but we persevered through it all to make it to our goal.  

Little did I know that I would grow and change just as much if not more than some of my students through this experience.  I knew I was doing this to help give my students opportunities that will make them better people and ultimately more marketable in the future.  I often told them that this will be the hardest thing they have done in their lives so far but it will also be the most rewarding.