SPLAT. I felt the whipped cream slowly drying in my hair and dripping down my face as yet another whipped cream pie hit me in the face. Normally I don’t spend my Thursday afternoons getting whipped cream pies thrown at me, but this was a special occasion. My First Year Seminar – The Portrayal of Mental Illness and Intellectual Disabilities in the Media – was running the Ruby Van Meter Homecoming carnival for its students. Before this day, I had never been to a place quite like Ruby Van Meter. RVM is a school for students with intellectual disabilities and only intellectual disabilities. They have an amazing amount of resources to work with students and give them the best education possible. All around me, the carnival was full of laughter as students took part in a photo booth, cake walk, fishing for prizes, face painting and of course the pie toss. As I got another pie in the face and another student cackled with laughter, my peers and I agreed that the pies in the face for an hour was worth it and we couldn’t wait for our service learning at Ruby Van Meter to start that week.
