The Human Experience Orlando

Sweet, beautiful, brilliant Tanga. You were so loving to those around you and loved by all. You will be dearly missed by your THE family, especially your THE sisters and brothers. What a blessing and honor it was to know and love you. We miss you already.

Yesterday we held our annual BBQ + Grad Party! So great to catch up and celebrate our amazing alumni. Our grads are heading off to HBCUs, state colleges & universities, and trade schools. So proud of them and the moves they are making!

For some of us, this year also marks our 10-year anniversary together. 10 years! 🎉🎉🎉

9 years (4th grade to 12th grade), and we fought to earn and enjoy every precious minute of it.

God bless these amazing young men and women as they move forward in pursuit of their dreams. Thank you to everyone, everyone, EVERYONE who played a role in making this magic happen. We are grateful for each other and grateful for you.

All our graduates in the front, sporting Human Experience hoodies in their school colors, with parents, grandparents, and siblings sporting black THE hoodies in the back.

We at The Human Experience would like to extend an enormous thank you to all our parents and family members. You believed in the mission, you supported the mission, and you carried it through to completion. What a great honor and joy it has been to serve your children and your families over the past 9 years. You have changed our lives and the lives of so many others, and we are indebted to you for the sacrifices you have made.

No matter where life takes us from here, one thing is certain: we are Forever Fam.

Photo Credit: David Lawrence Photography

On Saturday May 22nd we held our THE Graduation Ceremony for the Class of 2021 & had a family reunion. We had a huge turnout and enjoyed a full 6 hours together talking and playing basketball and eating and playing freeze tag and throwing Tootsie Rolls at each other (they sting waaaaaay more than they did when this crew was 7th graders) and watching movies.

It was a bittersweet moment because we were celebrating our inaugural class' graduation from high school ("Woohoo!!!!") while also coming to grips with the fact that we don't know when all of us will ever be in the same room again. Several of our students are entering the military. Others are moving on to four-year and two-year colleges and universities. Others are heading to technical colleges. With this fully in mind, we did our part to be present and enjoy each other's company.

The remarkable thing about this group is that there is no pretense. A lot of times with young adults/adults, there's a lot of posturing and projecting (think high school reunions). Not with this group. They have literally spent thousands of hours with each other. They know each others greatest strengths and weaknesses. They are connected on social media so they are relatively up-to-date. They are as close to non-blood brothers and sisters as you can get. So when they are together, it's connection right off the bat. And it's a beautiful thing to witness.

As all of them stand on the precipice of adulthood and all that comes with it, events like this are important because it gives them, if only for one last time, permission to be kids. The smiles and the laughter and the joy were genuine, as you can see in the pictures.

Rather than going with a traditional graduation ceremony format, we went back in time and unearthed videos and movies from the back of the THE/Pinecrest Creek family vault. It was a reminder of how much fun we had together, how creative our students were/are, and just how incredibly different our school was. We'll post some of those soon.

We were also graced with an acoustic performance from our very own Hallejah, who heads off to NYU in this fall.

All in all, as you can see in the pictures, the "kids" are thriving, moving up, and continuing to make us proud. I don't know how our hearts could be any more full.

Another tribute will come later, but the biggest shout-out of all goes to our THE families, who were there for our scholars before, during, and after THE, and continue to encourage their students to be the best they can be. What wonderful men and women you all have raised. We pray blessing upon blessing over them as they move into their future, and will be cheering for them for years to come!

A special thank you to our good friend David Lawrence Photography for capturing so many of the moments from this night. Thank you for being part of our THE fam for years on end!

Next up, Class of 2022!!!