I Got a Golden Ticket

Posted on 07/31/2012 @ 11:47 PM

I Got a Golden Ticket

Today marked our last trip to our service sites at IMPACT: Chicago. As a coordinator, I have been fortunate enough to travel with all of the groups, and experience the different service sites first hand. I couldn’t have asked for a better day to end my Impact experience than a wonderful trip with UCAN to the Albanese Candy Factory. We were able to socialize and mingle with the senior citizens (not high schoolers!) on the bus ride to the factory, and were ecstatic when we arrived.

We started off exploring the massive candy shop in awe of the hundreds of candy flavors, and infinite mixtures of chocolate they had to offer. Later we went on a short, but interesting tour of the factory where we saw the gummy bears being made and learned a little about the history and progression of the company. It was unbelievable how many hundreds of thousands of pounds of gummy bears, chocolate, peanuts, and candy they make every day.

After the tour we had a very important decision to make… what candies would make the trip home, and which ones would not make the cut. Luckily, to fuel our opinions, we were able to sample a lot of candy and even more chocolate. Among my favorite were the peanuts covered in peanut butter, then dipped in chocolate, the milk chocolate caramel with sea salt on top, the yogurt covered pretzels, and their infamous 12 flavors of gummy bears. But I think after sampling the many different chocolates and candies, my favorite had to have been the delicious chocolate covered gummy bears. It was very cool walking around the candy shop with the senior citizens, and even cooler seeing how happy they were to not only be buying candy, but being able to socialize, and have conversations with all of the participants. We were able to bond over something we both truly loved: candy. When the day was finally over we had to say our final goodbyes to all the people at UCAN, which was definitely emotional for the participants who had been working with them for five days. Fortunately, we were able to relieve our grief with a delicious lunch at Portillo’s where we had delicious Chicago hotdogs, chili, and their famous Italian beef sandwich. Overall it was an incredible experience to have as my final day of service, and I couldn’t have asked for a better group (or field trip) to share it with. It’s crazy to think that tomorrow is our last day, and I know there will be even more incredible things planned for tomorrow.

Until next time, live long and prosper,

Tucker