Summer search has been a life changing experience for me. When I first heard about summer search I thought that it would just be a free trip during the summer, doing some outdoor stuff and traveling to another country. Little did I know that these trips and summer search as a whole would change my life, and turn me into the person that I have become. Talking with a mentor every week at summer search was hard in the beginning but it gave me an outlet to start talking about my feelings that I was keeping inside. For the first time I started to realize things about myself and I started understand how I was feeling. I kept things inside for so long that I did not even know how what was going on with myself. As I started to get a better understanding of myself I went on my first trip. During this trip I met an amazing group of people who had similar stories as mine, as we continued to talk I was able to confide in them things I was not able to confide in others and I was able to form a family with them. For the first time in my life I was actually happy. I look forward to doing all the activities and each day. I made friends that would last me to this day. With my second summer trip it was the same. I was able to form a bond with different people in a different country. Summer Search has helped me open up more and find out who I am as a person. To this day I am still trying to figure that out but with the help of summer search I have been able to have an idea. I have found out things I like , like being in the outdoors, and making that a part of my life. I decided to leave a big city, Boston, and go to school in a small town in Upstate New York and I love it. And if it was not for summer search I would not have even considered it.