A nonprofit group founded by Rosa Parks is pledging to refund $500 to dozens of students who were promised a trip to Africa last August.
The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development admits there were many problems, from buying tickets to raising more money for the trip to Ghana. The Detroit Free Press (http://on.freep.com/y7STCC) says only 20 of 70 students traveled. Institute director Anita Peek says it was a "calamity of errors."
As planned, the kids spent an orientation week at Grand Valley State University but most never got out of Michigan. Elizabeth Hoffman, the Birmingham mother of a 12-year-old boy, says the whole experience revealed "disrespect and dishonesty."
The late Parks founded the institute in 1987 to teach young people about civil rights.