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Dec 15th, 2008 by The Revolve Tour



By JAMIE GUMBRECHT

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Saturday, December 06, 2008.



Whatever. A 7,000-person crowd, mostly teen girls, took over Gwinnett Center in Duluth on Saturday for The Revolve Tour, a weekend event of music and motivation â and lots of screaming. The lineup included pop-gospel acts like Hawk Nelson, Natalie Grant, Group 1 Crew and Nicole C. Mullen. And the discussion? Faith. Plastic surgery. Guys. %#!@. Weight. Self-esteem. Self-acceptance. âIâve never been around so many girls like me,â said Jocelyn Amaker, 17, of Columbus. âWe all have something in common.âAnd not just that they shriek whenever someone on stage mentions Facebook, or âThe Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,â or really, pretty much anything. Jocelyn and her sisters bumped into some of the same people they go to high school with, but never talk to. That changed this weekend.âI never thought about it â I just thought about what I was going through,â said Makayla Amaker, 14. âYou donât know everybody, what theyâre going through. You canât judge.âLong lines stretched from merchandise booths selling books, CDs, T-shirts and posters and autograph tables stationed by the tourâs headliners. They lined up, too, to meet Austin Gutwein, a 14-year-old student from Arizona, who started a non-profit that helps children orphaned by HIV and AIDS. When he spoke, one voice bellowed âIâm in love with you!â Austin blushed and kept going â the Revolve Tour is hitting 16 cities; heâs used to the screaming, and the arenaâs where menâs bathrooms have temporary signs up for ladies instead. The audience was silent until he finished a short, you-can-do-it speech. Then his non-profit, Hoops of Hope, became the new buzzword on the floor, along with another organization, World Vision. Karen Mizell and her daughter, Karson Mizell, 13, of Griffin, signed up through World Vision to sponsor a 1-year-old Peruvian child named Camila. Karson says sheâll send the infant toys and her own weekly allowance. That, and the music, made for a wild girlâs weekend.âRaw,â is how mom describes the weekend. âPumped up,â daughter says, in a good, voice-losing way, with a mix of girls in heavy black eyeliner and girls barely old enough to color inside the lines.If it were any different, âI would try to hide some of me,â Karson said. âAround girls, I can be myself.â