This year, Robert Gammon accompanied a group of six youth, including myself, on the Jubilate Choir’s Summer Tour. Youth choirs from five churches gathered together in January to learn eight songs, and we performed them on a week-long trip.

The tour began in Louisville this year with a trip to the Frazier Museum and the Big Four Walking Bridge before an afternoon of rehearsal and set-up. Some of you attended our concert here at Broadway on Wednesday night, but then we continued our trip through several more cities.

After a night at host homes here in Louisville, the group drove to Santa Claus, Ind., for an exciting day at Holiday World, an amusement park full of roller coasters and water slides. We left Holiday World for a night in Bowling Green, Ky., before going to Nashville the next day. In Nashville, we sang at an assisted living facility and enjoyed an afternoon of free time at a mall nearby.

That evening, we had what I would consider the most meaningful concert, singing for 350 homeless men at the Nashville Rescue Mission. We performed as a part of their daily worship service, and they loved our singing so much that they begged for an encore. After repeating one more song, we left for a hotel in Madison, Ala.

On Saturday, we drove to Macon, Ga., where we rehearsed for our final concert. We sang in the Sunday morning worship service at Highland Hills Baptist Church, ate lunch, and said goodbye to our friends before all the groups went our separate ways. Overall, I would say this year’s Jubilate Summer Tour was my favorite because I made so many new friends and had lots of unique experiences.

~Emily Dotson