5/1/2008 - National Volunteer Week Highlights
Reach Out to Your Fellow Volunteers
My most sincere greetings to all AFS-USA volunteers on this occasion of National Volunteer Week. Although my title as Chair of the Board may seem vaulted, let me assure you, I am simply one of the over 7,000 registered volunteers for AFS-USA. We offer our time, expertise and resources to AFS-USA because the mission, peace through understanding, refreshes our souls. We believe our volunteerism today links us to the selflessness of the American Field Service ambulance drivers during World War I and II. We bask in the growth and transformation of our youthful participants during their AFS experience. (Some of us were fortunate enough to have been youthful AFS participants.) Our continued participation as volunteers brings us intangible benefits, even during the toughest situations that all organizations face.
Please take the time this week to reach out to the other dear AFS-USA volunteers you work with most closely. Let them know how special they are and how grateful you feel to volunteer side by side with them. Many volunteers support organizations where the staff dwarfs volunteers. Not so at AFS-USA! National Volunteer Week is truly about us at AFS-USA. Our mission is as relevant today as it was sixty years ago just after World War II. AFS-USA’s volunteers will continue to pursue changing the world one person at a time!
Thank you and congratulations!
Kim Ritrevi (AFS USA Board Chair)
Nurturing Our Leaders of Tomorrow
It has been an enormous privilege to work with AFS volunteers in my community, on our area team, and those all over the US, as well as the many staff persons who assist us in our unique partnership. Volunteers share the mission by teaching acceptance of others, spend countless hours recruiting students and families to share this experience, and occasionally drop everything to tend to a student who is far from home and in need of help. Volunteers also share a love of storytelling, and often the story is why we volunteer!
Here is my latest favorite story: in 2003 we placed Meza in our community, one of the last students on our area team’s list. She arrived quietly, in head scarf, with a beautiful smile. She absorbed everything she could, loved joyously, and studied with a passion. When it was time to leave, she had completely won over her family, the high school and anyone whose lives she had touched. She had also changed her career choice to international law.
Last week Meza returned to visit her host family, older, wiser, more experienced, but still Meza with the beautiful smile. She had just competed in the International Jessup Moot Court with her team from the University of Jakarta in Washington, DC, the culmination of competitions that involves over 500 law schools in more than 80 countries. The Court is a simulation of a fictional dispute between countries, addressing timely issues such as terrorism and human rights. Meza was chosen as the third most effective speaker in the entire competition!
Volunteers have this opportunity to nurture those students who will be world leaders of tomorrow, and those who will make a difference in their families and communities. It is both an awesome responsibility, and an awesome joy. My deepest thanks to you all!
Judy Weyand (National Council Chair & Volunteer Northeast Region)
’Send me an email’ My Story – How I Became a Volunteer for AFS-USA
One day I sent a random email to AFS-USA through our national web site. A few weeks went by and I had forgotten that I had sent the email. Then, one Sunday afternoon, out of the blue, I got a call from a woman named Kathy Rees who asked me if I wanted to pick up two girls at the airport late on a Thursday night. It was August and it was arrival time. I said “Sure, why not.”
So…Thursday night came and I went to the airport to meet two young ladies, one from Thailand and one from Colombia. As they sat in the back seat of my car, exhausted and confused, I remember them staring out the window at the bright lights of downtown Seattle as we drove to Kathy’s house. They looked in awe at the tall buildings and of course, the Space Needle. The girls were very quiet and probably a bit afraid of the strange man driving them out into the country. They didn’t say much and just kept staring out the windows.
Once we got to Kathy’s house, about 11:30 PM, the girls joined a crowd of about 20 all through Kathy’s house. At that point, Kathy said to me, “Would you like to help out some more? We have an upcoming event and could always use some assistance.” I said, “Sure, send me an email.”
It is hard to believe that was 7 years ago. I have been privilege to work with over 300 students, families and many volunteers in that time. I have hosted 5 wonderful young men that will be the closest thing I ever have to children of my own and I have made some close friends, including one Kathy Rees. AFS has brought me such joy and happiness over these many years. The time I give to the organization rewards me two-fold. So I say during National Volunteer Week, thank you my fellow volunteers for making my involvement with AFS so meaningful. Each time I meet a new volunteer, I know I am meeting a new friend as well.
Damian Pisanelli (National Council Member & Volunteer Northwest Region)
Tuesday April 29, 2008
Thank You East Metro Area Team
It has been my privilege over the past 10 years to meet and work with volunteers from around the country whose passion for supporting this program never ceases to amaze me! How lucky we (AFS) are to have so many skilled, creative and truly caring people dedicated to sharing a vision of peace. My thanks go specifically to the East Metro Area Team for their continuing hard work and team spirit. Additional thanks goes to each one of you who find host families, mentor and challenge American Abroad candidates, drive buses, stay awake all night at orientations, lend a listening ear and the thousands of other jobs needed during the year. AFS would not be the organization that it is without each of your unique contributions. Thanks!!
Debbie Dahlberg (National Council Member & Volunteer Upper Midwest Region)
AFS Volunteers – A Staff Perspective
In eleven years as an AFS staff member, I have had the privilege of getting to know and work closely with literally hundreds of AFS volunteers from all over the country – and especially in the Great Lakes and Central States Regions. In that time, I have learned to appreciate the dedication of our volunteers not only to the AFS mission, but just as importantly, to our student participants, our host families, and the families of our sending students, our schools, and our communities. Whether you are a volunteer who has helped to move a student late at night, or helped students and host families work through their differences, or helped to recruit and screen host families and/or students to go abroad, or helped at orientations, or helped at the airport during student departures or arrivals, or done the accounting for your local chapter or for your Area Team, or helped with AFS’ fundraising efforts, or anything else that you have done for AFS, know that your contributions are valued and know that AFS could not do anything without our volunteers. So, from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU, for all you do for AFS!
Scott Hume (National Council Member & Staff Great Lakes Region)
Our Daughter’s Amazing Year – Thanks to the AFS Volunteers, Staff & Host Community
We are deeply grateful to you and the organization you represent for the care and attention to FLEX participants and finalists, including our daughter Yuliya Trostynskaya, and for the excellent administration of the program from travel to the USA to school and family placements.
We are sincerely thankful to our daughter’s host family – Patricia Renner and her daughter Ann Renner. Pat shows a truly motherly concern for our daughter. Yuliya has been accepted as a member of the family both by Pat and Ann, Pat’s parents, who Yuliya and Pat have visited with, Pat’s other relations who all together make up a big close family. For the spring break in March, Pat took Yuliya and Ann on a wonderful vacation in Florida where they visited Disneyland, swam in the warm ocean and stated at a quality hotel. At the same time Pat has acted as a wise influence, too, and did everything to help our daughter succeed at American school.
During her time in the USA, Yuliya has had an opportunity to personally develop in many ways: she has learned to speak and think in English, has been succeeding academically (she has even taken up several advanced courses), she sings in the school choir, does track and field and gives presentations not only in her local schools, but also in other towns in Minnesota. It is all very interesting and useful. We believe Yuliya has an opportunity to get an insider’s view of the USA and learn to understand Americans, as well as meet and make friends with other FLEX students from various countries during regular FLEX conferences.
We are also grateful to the many wonderful school instructors that work in our daughter’s host school. Yuliya has literally fallen in love with physics and even assists her instructor in the lab with different experiments, she immensely enjoys doing homework and projects in statistics and has practiced solfeggio under the guidance of highly professional instructors that lead the school choir.
It seems to us that in a year in the USA our daughter has become more broad-minded, has learned to be more goal-oriented in her studies and has made lots of good friends. And all of this has been possible thanks to the opportunities she got through the “FLEX” program and the work of the program administrators. With gratitude and best wishes,
Sergey and Marina – parents of Yuliya
Volunteers Support our Host Participants in a Variety of Ways
Dear AFS and Volunteers,
Well I want to thank Ed and Nancy Howard a lot because in the first couple of months I had a problem and they helped me out. The problem was that I had a tooth infection and I had to pay a lot for it. For that reason I had to talk with my dad every week more than one time each week. So at the camp in Sierra I had a conversation with Ed and he helped me out and Nancy helped me even a bit more when we got back to her house. Well it was nice of them to put some time in helping me out. So I want to thank you a lot. Thank you very much.
Yours,
Pawan (AFS Participant from Austria hosted in Sierra San Joaquin Area Team)
40 Years and Counting – My Experience as an AFS Volunteer
Yesterday I had the privilege to hear a speech given by a woman from Finland who was an AFS student to Texas in 1962-63. She was one of the students who traveled to the United States on a ship. As she related her first encounters with the American culture—being offered a BLT and being told she was going to have a blind date the 2nd night after she arrived—it reminded me that, although this occurred 45 years ago, the transition for current AFS students still has many similarities. The image of Americans from the 60s was the Beaver Cleaver family. The image today in movies is much different but still no more realistic than before.
As volunteers we still are seeking host families and Americans Aboard to share this unique experience. Sixty years as the leading exchange organization gives AFS Intercultural Programs the ability to say that “yes” we are “changing the world one person at a time”. When you think about how many people are touched by just one AFS student during the course of their year/semester, it brings home how much impact we, as an organization, has had and continues to have—all due to the dedication of volunteers around the world.
This is my 40th year as an AFS volunteer. It began as a project to have an exchange student in the high school where I taught and has resulted in over 70 students spending a year/semester in our school plus sending about 15 Americans abroad. This is a school in a community of 4500. Again, multiply that times the other schools across the nation and we once again see the impact of the tireless work done by volunteers year after year after year. AFS’ Mission is carried forth by volunteers, host and natural families, staff and participants. We’re all in this together as we work toward a more just and peaceful world.
Mary Porterfield (National Council Member & Volunteer South Central Region)
Returnee Story – A Special Volunteer from AFS Argentina
Pablo, my liaison, was able to make my AFS year a success through both the ups and the downs, I only wish that every AFS student could have a liaison like him; without Pablo’s efforts to support and help me I never would have found my Argentinean family. Pablo did much more than a liaison is required to do and I will always remember him and the help he gave me. Pablo managed to give this support to not just me, but to two other exchange students at the same time, while attending university and working a part time job. I am now a volunteer in Madrid Spain, where I attend university, and hope to be a liaison next fall. Pablo truly represented the mission of AFS: helping people to communicate and find their place in another culture and family. Now whenever I am struggling through a challenge, like a fractured heel, I remember what Pablo always told me about how the strongest among us who face the most challenges are those who are able to learn the most and find the positives in the most trying of times.
Adele Byrne (AFS Returnee to Argentina 2005 & AFS Volunteer in Spain)
How AFS Helped Me On the Road to Archaeology
As a child, I always had trouble when adults asked the infamous “what do you want to be when you grow up” question. Every few years the answer would change, but never once did I say archaeologist. I think in my case my lack of desire to be any one thing helped to shape the path that led me to become an archaeologist in training. When I was a freshman in high school, an AFS volunteer did a presentation in my Spanish I class about studying abroad. I was captivated from the moment she started talking. I knew that my adventurous spirit would not want to stay in Wisconsin for the rest of my life. Like all interested students, the next challenge was to convince my parents what a great idea it was, but to my surprise I didn’t have to do any convincing at all! My parents were already familiar with AFS since they had become friends with an exchange student their senior year of high school and are still in contact with him today.
Since I commuted to my private high school in Milwaukee, I had officially become the sole member of the AFS chapter in West Bend. Luckily, a volunteer from the Mequon area chapter took the time to drive up to my house to conduct the interview. I was nervous when Minna Smith first arrived at my house, but also very excited because I knew this would be the first step to one amazing adventure. She began to ask all the normal questions and then she said, “Julie, why aren’t you applying to a country in Latin America?” I was caught off guard and didn’t want to admit that I wasn’t brave enough to go to a country that spoke a foreign language. She calmly assured me that the benefits of this type of experience outweighed the difficulties; “besides,” she added, “I think with your personality you would fit in perfectly in a Latin American country!”
Looking back upon that day, I often wonder how she could tell all that after talking to me for an hour or so, but she was completely right. Upon her recommendation, I changed my first choice to Venezuela and was accepted for the 2002-2003 year program. Due to political problems in the country at that time, AFS Venezuela made the difficult decision to send all exchange students back to their host countries as a safety precaution. I was first sent to Costa Rica for a night since it was the only available tickets out of the country. The Costa Rican AFS volunteers welcomed us with open arms and tried to show us a little bit of their culture while we made our pit stop on the way back to the United States. I am forever grateful for the time they gave up to take care of us those two days and often wish I could contact them to thank them myself.
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t mad at AFS for sending me home early. At the time, all I wanted to do was go back to Venezuela and see my host family and all the friends I made while I was there for just those 3 short months, but it turned out to be a life changing event. I applied to the University of Miami in Miami, FL for undergraduate classes. Since I couldn’t go back to Venezuela, I wanted to get as close as possible and study why such an event could occur in Latin America, but not in other parts of the world. I declared my major in Latin American Studies and soon decided to try the study abroad adventure again. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a program established with a university in Venezuela so I chose to spend a semester in Mexico City. My experience with AFS made my time in Mexico a lot easier since I was already accustomed to the rollercoaster ride of culture shock (and reverse culture shock for that matter!) The Mexican culture was exciting to experience because they are so proud of their indigenous heritage, unlike the Native Americans in the United States whose culture is often misunderstood.
Upon returning to Miami, I made it a mission to search out classes that would teach me more about the pre-Hispanic cultures of Mesoamerica. I found a professor in the Anthropology department who has become my mentor and encouraged me to further my education in other cultures (albeit pre-Hispanic ones) with a PhD degree. I will be moving to California in the fall to start working towards an archaeology degree at the University of California Berkeley, which unfortunately is farther away from Venezuela than I’d like, but I know that my family and friends will always be waiting for me to come back and visit. Never would I have imagined the path that my life as taken since that day my freshman year of high school. I know without a doubt that I owe it all to some incredible AFS volunteers who put the idea in my head and then encouraged me to take the risk and live life to the fullest!
Julie Wesp (AFS Returnee to Venezuela 2002)
AFS Volunteers as Family
I am one of those rare young volunteers out there, although I have been volunteering for about 9 years now. It is such a shame that more people do not take advantage of the instant family you get with AFS. When I moved back to Oregon from Connecticut I contacted AFS and started volunteering, I didn’t know anyone, but I knew if was surrounded by AFS people I would have an instant family. When I was on the Regional Council for Columbia Pacific I met Damian Pisanelli, when I found out I was moving to Seattle I contacted him right away and was welcomed into the area team. Now I consider my fellow AFS volunteers as family, they have made my transition to a new place incredibly easy.
We work on recruiting younger returnees for this very reason. We have a new volunteer, Whitney. She is a returnee from Denmark. She recently started to get in touch with her fellow Americans who where abroad with her and caught the AFS spirit again. She, like me, remembers the great volunteers when she was abroad and wanted to be that person for the kids hosted here. I am happy to have Whitney on board and all of our volunteers who work the feet and fingers to the bone!
Christine Stevens (Area Team Volunteer Coordinator – Greater Puget Sound Area Team)
Thank You Lisa – A Tribute from Jummy
The AFS volunteer that I had an inspirational experienced with is Lisa Bertelson. She was my liaison in Maryland. I had such a great time with her for the last seven months. I really like her. It’s not because she’s not old, but also be friendly. She did a very good job for being a liaison. When I had a problem, the next person that I am going to tell my problems to except my parents is Lisa. When I called her and tell her that I want to meet her or whatever, she will try to figure the way out, even though she is busy. She will meet me finally. During my stay in here, I found out that she is very important to me. She encouraged me to keep being an exchange student, whereas someone did not. She gave me the best choice that I can choose. For me, she was like my friend and apart of family, as well. She taught me the idiom “Keep your finger across”. It was when I was waiting for a new family. When I had no idea that what will happen soon. She told me to keep hoping and don’t quit easily. I always cried when I told her about my problems. I used to think that I am still young.” I just turned sixteen”. This is what I always says ^^ last year, But now I am going to be seventeen soon. I already grew up since I’ve been here, but somehow I had to thank “problems” that always came to me to solve it. If I didn’t have them. I wouldn’t have any need to talk to her. She made me feel that “I was not fighting alone. I am not alone.” I still have family, friends and her. Although I will not see her again. I hope that she will remember me because I always think about her. I have nothing else to say about this real inspirational experienced from me except “Lisa, You are awesome”
Jummy (AFS Participant from Thailand hosted in Capitol Area Team)
Tunisia in 1981 – Made Possible through AFS and Its Volunteers
As I negotiated the turn-styles at the Great Falls, Montana airport looking back at my weeping mother, all I could feel was a great rush of adventure and freedom. This was only my third time flying and I was to expect eighteen hours ahead spent in various airplanes flown by no less than four airlines. This trip was to prove many firsts in my life.
For a small-town 17-year-old who had never been east of Montana, New York City could have been my final destination with its own richness of culture. CW Post Center on Long Island prepared me for the long journey ahead. No less than two days were spent at each of the stops along the way: Casablanca for a long layover, Tunis for orientation at La Maison de Jeunes in the ancient Roman city of Carthage. After numerous trains, planes and taxis, and a week after leaving home, I was with my family in M’Saken, Tunisia, not the final stop. Teboulba, on the coast was to be my home for my summer stay.
After two weeks of “getting somewhere” I was used to change, however, one thing still amazed me: I was there! Walking down the street in this small town where I was “the American”, fair skin and blond, I couldn’t get used to the constant smell of Peugeot diesel pick-ups, the sound of Arabic, the waft of every kind of imaginable food smell some of which I have not smelled together since.
My host family was comprised of eight children, two girls and six boys. Since this was a summer stay, no one in the family had any outside responsibilities such as work or school, so I got to know each one as well as I could. I had a couple of years of High School French to work with, some Arabic language (general etiquette), but most Tunisians under a certain age are tri-lingual, that is, they speak Arabic, French and English (in order of fluency, generally). My host brother, Houcem, was two years my senior and spoke English reasonably well, better than my French. He was also the family member who applied to AFS to become a host family. As a result, I spent most of my time with him.
Time passed after my return. I was not in touch with my host family for 20 years until recently. I have written them and spoken to a couple of host brothers on the telephone. I plan to visit them all again someday soon.
One thing I would recommend to everyone participating in any AFS program is to keep a journal of the experience. Twenty-seven years later, I have a glimpse into who I was back then. I cannot only relive that summer, but I can also discover new memories or gain new understandings of who I am today.
I have AFS to thank for my experience, without whom I would not have attained such an enrichment the breadth of which surpassed my expectations of both knowledge and understanding of another culture. I can say this event lives today in my politics and in my compassion for others both near and far.
Eric Quist (AFS Returnee to Tunisia, 1981)
Special Thanks to Cami – Heart & Soul of Friends Across New England
Cami Buster is the heart, soul and core of the Friends Across New England team. As a host mom, liaison, Support Coordinator, Vermont farmer, carpenter and set-designer for high school productions – this energetic woman has given vitality and creativity to the “fledgling” Friends Area Team, where a few dedicated volunteers make an AFS experience happen for about 40 foreign students each year.
Cami has done it all with AFS. As a teenager, she was an AFSer to Cypress in the 1971. Now, most of us know her as a superb Support Coordinator. She is direct, fair, calm and tough when she needs to be. Her success may be founded on lots of hosting experience. Cami and her family first hosted in 1999, and over the past nine years, they have hosted twenty students, either as a temporary, welcome or permanent host family. Her success in the support area may also be grounded in her extensive liaison experience; AFS records show that throughout the years, she has been linked to 44 students as a liaison.
Cami began assuming AFS volunteer leadership positions shortly after the Area Team structure was established in 2004(?). The new organizational structure produced special geographical challenges in her area, as most of Connecticut and New Hampshire, western Massachusetts, and all of Vermont became lumped together into an area team called “Friends Across New England.” Partly because of the size of the area, the team was “defunct” for the first few years. Cami was part of the original group of volunteers who gave the Friends Area Team the theme of “we put the fun in defunct”. Cami and this group worked hard, eagerly accepting any task necessary to keep AFS going in these states and driving some very long distances. Within a surprisingly short amount of time, “Friends” became a functioning area team. Cami and the leaders had “put the fun in functioning.”
Cami has also been an instrumental part of every orientation we do as an area team. She found a lovely location in northern New Hampshire on a lake where Friends hosted 50 students and volunteers for Post Arrivals and Midyear orientations for several years. She frequently did the food shopping for these orientations, and supplemented the fare with the most exquisite naturally blue and green pastel colored eggs from her farm chickens. Martha Stewart would be impressed! These orientations brought untold happiness to many students who felt isolated and needed to bond with others as they adjusted to their life in America. Students knew they could always find a compassionate ear in Cami. She and her husband often coordinated the breakfast cooking for the whole group on these New Hampshire weekends.
Cami runs liaison training for our area team. She has been the area team Sending Coordinator and our Regional Council Rep. She mostly has been a wonderful mentor to new volunteers on how to make the AFS experience work. She proudly wears t-shirts student groups have signed at orientations in years gone by—she has a great collection of personalized AFS apparel.
A few years ago, Cami gave us the news that her husband Dave had been diagnosed with cancer. Cami continued to participate in AFS as much as she could as his illness progressed. During the past few months she has not been able to be with us, and we miss her immensely. She has trained us well; the group has been able to step up and keep things going without her. But her presence is sorely missed. Dave died last month, and with his passing our team members felt a sadness that we have never experienced as a group.
When AFS requested personal stories for the upcoming National Volunteer Week, Cami immediately came to mind. She has given selflessly to AFS for years. This is the time to recognize her and the tremendous work she has done for our wonderful organization.
Pam Zeller & Stacie Miller (AT Chair and AT Volunteer Friends Across New England Area Team)
AFS a Lifelong Learning Experience
My experience with AFS began while in high school in the 60’s, when the AFS student club was the largest club next to the sports pep club, and the class valedictorian was the student that represented our high school abroad each year and our high school of 3500 students hosted one AFS participant annually.
AFS was renewed to me in the 90’s when our youngest daughter (now 28) was inspired to apply for an AFS learning experience to Switzerland, and received an AFS sending scholarship from our local chapter were I continue to be a volunteer. Since that time we not only have learned more about ourselves as a family, but have a better understanding and acceptance of other cultures. We have also increased our family size by six students and families, and countries including: Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, and Russia. With our children now grown and independent, I am currently the liaison for a Chinese Visiting Teacher, as well as a student from Germany.
I will never cease to learn about our world through our AFS participants, about ourselves, as each year passes, and AFS learning experiences continue.
Elizabeth Leatham (National Council Member & Volunteer Northeast Region)
A Great Host Family Experience – Thanks to AFS Volunteers
I am having a great time with my host family and we have had many happy times together. Many of the funnier moments happened due to my poor English. My host Dad wrote down some of them for me:
One evening we were talking about personalities and Ale was trying to say she was a volcano in that at times she could just explode. Instead what she said was “I’m a Vulcan!”, to which I immediately raised up my right hand with the Vulcan ‘V’ sign from Star Trek and said, “Live Long and Prosper” while my wife grabbed the tops of her ears and pulled them up. We all laughed for a long time over that one. After dinner one evening, after text messaging a boy she liked who had not responded to her, she asked, “What is wrong with him?” I said, “Well, he’s a man and you can’t expect too much from him”. I heard “Amen!” but what she said was “Ah…Men” She often said, “You’re killing me” when she meant “You’re kidding me.” I would raise my arm up and make stabbing motions with an imaginary knife, to which we would all start laughing. One time when she was overjoyed, she said, “You Pee!”, when she meant to say “Whoopie!” On arriving home from school one day, Ale announced, “I’m going clean out my ‘behinder’”,
when she meant to say, “I’m going to clean out my binder.”
Alessia (AFS Participant from Italy hosted in Sierra San Joaquin Area Team)
Upon My Retirement – 30 Years of Reflection
This is my 30th and final year as an AFS volunteer. My decision to retire from the student program at the end of this cycle is one I’ve made gradually and with some misgivings. But I know it’s the right decision for me at this time in my life. Reflecting upon the 30 years has given me an opportunity to remember the great AFS students and teachers, host families, school personnel, other volunteers and AFS staff with whom I’ve had the privilege of working.
I think back to the year I became Area Rep in 1982. I had agreed to help with a mid-winter orientation. The day before the event, I received a call from the then Area Rep. “I’m not going to be able to make it to the weekend; I’m in the hospital, and likely to be here a while.” Wow! Kids arriving the next day! Despite the short notice, things went well, other volunteers pulled together to make it all happen.
So many organizational changes have taken place over the last 30 years:
- AFS centralized in NYC
- community AFS chapters raising ~$1000 to participate in AFS
- Americans Abroad needing to be from participating chapters
- all placements being handled in the NY office
- host family applications being due in NY by Feb 15 (REALLY!)
- hosted student applications being sent to chapters to help with family finding (these “reverse placements” were rare)
- students going abroad having no choice in the country to which they were sent
- hosted students going to the NY office for counseling
- orientations of 600-800 at CW Post on Long Island, with amazing talent shows
These changes haven’t always been easy. But adapting and accepting change is one of the best outcomes of being part of AFS. I believe I’ve grown personally as I’ve helped to implement some of these changes.
As a volunteer, I’ve been Chapter President, Liaison, director of arrival orientations for students and teachers, Area Team Chair, Volunteer Recruiter/Trainer, Regional and National Council Reps and have participated on several committees, chaperoned a group of students to Switzerland, and had the pleasure a few years ago of going to Iceland and Russia to assist in training volunteers. My passion has always been the AFS Visiting Teacher program, and I’m continuing with that for one more year.
I can’t imagine anything else I might have done for 30 years that would have been more satisfying and rewarding, and yes – challenging. Our troubled world needs AFS and other programs that bring people together in friendship. My best wishes to all of the volunteers who are carrying on this wonderful work.
AFS will always be part of my life. My e-mail address is AFSCathie”at”aol.com, my license plate says AFS BUS. And, though it can’t be seen, my heart is stamped with the letters AFS.
Cathie Currin (Global Educators Volunteer – Eastern NY Area Team)
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