23-02-2025
Local dinner fundraises for students' Civil Rights Movement field trip
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — A fundraiser at First Presbyterian Church in Youngstown on Sunday helped to raise money for a high school student field trip.
The trip is called Sojourn to the Past, and it's an eight-day journey to the Civil Rights sites in the South for Youngstown City Schools students to learn a part of American History. The students will be able to meet leaders of the Civil Rights Movement and learn the lessons of the movement.
The Mahoning Valley Spaghetti Dinner Fundraiser helps them raise their portion of expenses for the trip.
Penny Wells, the executive director of Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past, talked about what students have done in the past after they returned home.
'They come back with action plans to implement, one of which was non-violence, non-violence week and they petition — the students petition the school board, the county commissioners, the [Youngstown State University] trustees, the City Council members, asking them to pass a resolution to make the first week in October Non-Violence Week, which they did,' Wells said.
A group of 15 students will leave for this year's trip on April 2.
Tino DiCenso contributed to this report.
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