The young men made an impression on everybody who saw them and seeing the 30-foot granite statue of King made an impression on the young men, all part of the CTAG program.

Forty-three male students from Cleveland didn’t let Hurricane Irene ruin their once-in-a-lifetime experience of visiting Washington, D.C.

Because of Irene, the Aug. 28 unveiling of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall was postponed. The unveiling was the purpose of the bus trip.

But the high school students didn’t allow the bad weather to keep their three-day, two-night odyssey from being cancelled, said Timothy Roberts, a CMSD regional linkage coordinator, the trip organizer and one of nine chaperones.

To make the field trip possible, CMSD received support from a number of organizations, Roberts said. Turner Construction bought backpacks. The Word Church bought dress shoes and Tri-C donated white polo shirts for each of the boys, who wore their Closing the Achievement Gap (CTAG) blazers during the trip.

The young men made an impression on everybody who saw them and seeing the 30-foot granite statue of King made an impression on the young men, all part of the CTAG program.

The students also took tours of the city, which included visits to the Howard University campus, the Pentagon, the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum, Washington monuments and the home of Frederick Douglass, a fiery critic of slavery in the 1800s.

“It was something to remember,” said Eric Mays II, one of 15 students from Martin Luther King Jr. High School, who made the trip. “There were actually people [visiting the memorial] who cried there – people there who were part of everything King stood for.

“A lot of people realize it wasn’t just Martin Luther King Jr. when they put that statue up. It’s him and all of his followers. So when they see the statue of him, it’s really representing everybody who marched behind him.”

As part of their D.C. experience, the students kept journals. Since their return to Cleveland, they are now serving as “ambassadors of change” at their respective high schools and sharing stories about their trip with fellow students.