The Pledge Retreat by Alfred Garcia

The first thing I have to say is that I had a great time at the pledge retreat. That was such an
interesting, different, and fun weekend that I would not hesitate to repeat it if I could. Sure, we didn’t
get as many service hours as we wanted but the fact that we pledges got so close afterwards really
made the whole trip worthwhile in my mind. Everything from our failed raps to the game of “murder”
we played Friday night made it all just perfect. Doing all the little games and staying the night with
everyone really made us interact with each other and see sides of each other we had not seen before. I
stayed up pretty late that night even though I knew we had to get up early the next day but it was worth
it. The next day we woke up to inches of snow on the ground and it looked like we weren’t going to be
able to do what we originally planned to do. We were supposed to rake leaves for the camp but seeing
as it was all covered in snow we could not. Someone got creative and instead we collected firewood,
stacked logs, cleared dead wood, and cleaned the snow off of other campers’ cars. There was a point
where there was nothing else we could do so we then just had a snowball fight and played capture the
flag. I usually don’t like the snow or the cold but it was a good time and I didn’t mind it at all that day.
In the end we all had a blast. I became closer with my pledge class and did something different that
weekend. As I said, we didn’t get as many hours as we originally planned but to be honest it was totally
worth it.