Connecting Communities, Changing Lives: Inside the 2024 AFS-USA Summit

Join me at the 2024 AFS-USA Summit in Dallas, Texas- a weekend packed with connection, inspiration, and a few unexpected surprises. This year’s theme, Connecting Communities, Changing Lives, brought together volunteers, host families, and staff from across the country to share ideas, celebrate accomplishments, and recharge around the AFS mission.

From the buzzing Marketplace and heartwarming awards ceremony to insightful sessions and a lively line-dance lesson, the weekend was unforgettable. You’ll hear from award-winning volunteers, learn what fuels their passion for AFS, and catch some fun behind-the-scenes moments- like a surprise reunion and how a random flight conversation turned one dad into a volunteer.

Whether you’re already part of the AFS family or just curious about this worldwide community, take a listen to hear about the connections forged this weekend!

Study Abroad with AFS-USA: www.afsusa.org/study-abroad
Volunteer with AFS-USA: www.afsusa.org/volunteer
Host with AFS-USA: www.afsusa.org/host
Educator Resources: www.afsusa.org/educators
Contact us: podcast@afsusa.org

Chapters

• 4:03 AFS Marketplace
• 7:06 What are you looking forward to this weekend?
• 9:18 Volunteer Awards Ceremony
• 12:30 Why do you enjoy volunteering with AFS?
• 18:44 Partner Country Sessions
• 19:54 Volunteer and Staff-Led Sessions
• 21:06 Reverse Returnees
• 23:43 Line Dancing Lesson

Transcript

Kate M.
Hello and welcome to The AFS Exchange. I'm your host, Kate Mulvihill. On this show, we delve into unique perspectives from members of our AFS family, providing insights that only international exchange experiences can offer.

In every episode, we open the door wide to welcome the voices of those whose lives have been profoundly impacted by AFS. This is a place to have conversations, or exchanges, with AFS host families, students, volunteers, and educators.

Kate M.
For this episode, I am going to take you on a trip with me. Not an international trip, but an international-related trip, I guess. I am traveling from Brooklyn, New York, to… Dallas, Texas. Well technically, Irving, Texas.

Flight Attendant
We’re now almost ready to go. So please take your seat, fasten your seatbelts, and stow your tray table and carry on items. Ensure aisle armrests are in the resting position. Flight attendants, please arm doors for departure, cross check, and await all call.

Kate M.
This year, AFS-USA held its annual Summit in Dallas, Texas, and I’m excited to bring you some highlights from the event!

First off, what exactly is the Summit? It’s AFS-USA’s national volunteer leadership conference—a chance for volunteer leaders to connect, learn from each other, and share best practices with AFS volunteers and staff from across the U.S. and beyond. It’s also a time to hear about the organization’s priorities for the coming year and to get re-energized by AFS-USA’s mission.

The National Council, which is made up of both volunteers and staff, plans the Summit agenda based on the organization’s priorities. This group works closely with the AFS-USA President to make sure the voices of volunteers are part of the bigger picture when it comes to programs and policies. It’s a great example of the volunteer-staff partnership that drives so much of what AFS does.

This year’s theme? Connecting Communities, Changing Lives. Throughout the weekend, we explored ways to strengthen AFS communities-  connecting volunteers, families, and students while also building awareness of AFS locally. The goal was for everyone to leave feeling inspired, motivated, and ready to bring the AFS mission to life in their communities. This year, AFS-USA worked to open up the event to even more attendees, so more volunteers and host families could benefit from the ideas and energy shared.

So as you can probably tell, this episode is going to be a bit different from what you normally hear on The AFS Exchange podcast. So, who’s this episode for? Well, if you’re a host parent or an AFS-USA volunteer, this is a great way to catch up on what happened  at the Summit. And if you’re listening because you’re curious about AFS, I hope this episode gives you a feel for what makes this community so special. Along with recapping the Summit, I’ll be sharing clips from attendees about why they volunteer with AFS and what keeps them coming back.         

So. Come with me to the AFS-USA Summit…

Kate M.
So November 1st, I wake up very early, and take a car to JFK to catch my flight to Dallas. And I have a nice talk with my Lyft driver while stuck in traffic. We discuss how… the vehicles driven by rideshare drivers look different across the country. For example, he mentions how in the South there are some Lyft drivers who drive pickup trucks, in comparison to New York City’s luxury black cars and SUVs. I tell him that’s nothing I’ve ever seen in a Lyft, but I had seen minivans in Minnesota…

So anyway, I get to the airport, I board the flight, I read for a few hours, I land…
 
Flight Attendant
Thank you for choosing Delta, and we hope to see you again soon.

Kate M.
And I hang out at Dallas airport. I have my 6th or 7th coffee of the day. I wait for a bit for Natalie, who you’ll hear from briefly later. We meet up, she grabs her bag, then she calls us a rideshare. The guy pulls up… in a pickup truck. We’ve officially arrived to Texas.

[Texas music]

Kate M.
The Summit weekend kicked off with the Marketplace- an opportunity for various volunteer and staff groups to introduce what they do, answer questions, and exchange ideas. It’s a chance for everyone to connect and get to know each other before the formal sessions begin. The Marketplace this year had games, freebies, AFS merch, photo ops… and, since it was the day after Halloween, lots of candy!
I spoke with some folks as they were setting up for the Marketplace.

Jennifer A.   
Hi, I'm Jennifer Anderson. I work with AFS as a Volunteer Services Specialist, and I live in the Baltimore area. I'm helping out with the marketplace. So we have a whole bunch of volunteers and staff who are sharing a little bit of information about what they do, and just kind of getting people a little bit more involved, hopefully with the organization.

Natalie R.
So my name is Natalie Rehberger, and I'm a Sponsor Programs Hosting Specialist at AFS, and I live in DC.
So we wanted to highlight specifically our Malaysian students, because we do have, currently four Malaysian students without host families that are supposed to arrive in January. And so within Malaysian culture, we wanted to highlight that it's, you know, is a multicultural country, and today happens to be one of the days of Diwali. So we're highlighting that aspect of it, of Malaysian culture, in terms of Indian subculture. So we have some flowers and lights. It's the Festival of Lights, and some little Indian candies and lots of brochures and information about our different students and sponsored programs.

Ryan T.
My name is Ryan Tallman. I'm the director of Hosting Travel at AFS USA, and I live in West Orange, New Jersey. We're setting up a whole bunch of swag to give out to people. We have travel shirts of various designs. We have new lanyards that we have given AFS hosted participants that we're going to share with volunteers. And we also have a couple of AFS travel jackets that we're going to give away.

Kate M.
I had a table at the Marketplace to promote the podcast, and I loved chatting with everyone who stopped by. Some people were new to the show, while others came over to tell me they’d been listening for years—which was so great! Thank you to everyone who came by.

I tried to interview a few people during the Marketplace, but it was pretty loud! So if we talked and your audio doesn’t make it into the episode, my apologies.

The Marketplace is a regular Summit feature, but this year it felt even more important because so many first-timers were attending. Besides learning about the podcast, visitors could stop by tables representing National Council Advisory Groups and Committees, Marketing Department, Digital Products, Summer Programs, and more.

The Dallas Area Team, the local hosts, also had a table, and they put in a ton of work to make the weekend special. They prepared gift bags for all attendees, created unique cowboy boot centerpieces for the dining room tables, and even organized a line dancing lesson- which you’ll hear more about later.

Kate M.
On Friday night and early Saturday, I asked a number of folks what they were looking forward to at this year’s Summit. And I got a lot of similar answers.

Lynn O.   
Matching names with faces.

Natalie R.
Face-to-face.

Ryan T.
In person connections.

Marie E.
Seeing people from around the country.

Leigh R.
Putting faces with names.

Jacob N.
Getting together with everybody in one room.

Nancy H.
Being with the community of AFS people who want to change the world.

Kate M.
This year’s theme, “Connecting Communities,” was all about these moments. Volunteers connecting with other volunteers doing similar work across the country, host families connecting with volunteers and staff to understand how it all comes together, and staff finally meeting in person with the volunteers they’ve worked with remotely for years. Let’s hear a bit more about connection from Natalie, Marie, Leigh, and Jacob.

Natalie R.
I'd say, mostly meeting other people. I think it's really nice how, since we're a lot of us are working remotely, that we're able to connect through things like the summit. So I'm really looking forward to meeting a lot of volunteers that I work with on a regular basis, that I usually, you know, I'm exchanging phone calls and emails with, but actually getting to meet them for sometimes the first time face to face is always really nice.

Marie E.
Just a community of people getting together and seeing people from around the country that are doing the same thing, going the same direction, and sometimes you talk to people on the phone, and you get to actually see them in person.

Leigh R.
I really love the opportunity to connect with volunteers from other Area Teams, as well as meeting staff in person and putting faces with names, so that we're not all emailing each other facelessly, but especially the other volunteers. It's lovely to be able to hear what other teams do. We really, a lot of times, get siloed in what our team does and and how it runs, and getting fresh perspectives and new ideas really jump starts creative processes for improving our own Area Team for me.

Jacob N.   
The main thing I'm looking forward to is just getting together with everybody in one room, since we're, you know, spread apart so far across the country, share knowledge and make new friendships and share the programs.

[Ceremony music]

Kate M.
On Friday night, there was an awards ceremony put on by the Volunteer Recognition Committee, or the VRC. We know that AFS loves an acronym. The VRC, which is composed of staff and volunteers, is responsible for the selection criteria, timelines, and coordinating the review process for AFS awards and chaperone trips.

During this ceremony, the VRC presented a few national awards, along with some international ones. For the international awards, the recipients were chosen to represent AFS-USA on an international stage, competing with other representatives from AFS partner countries worldwide.

I spoke with a few of the award winners after the fact and asked how they got involved with AFS and what they enjoy about volunteering.

First up is Mo, winner of the Emerging Leader award. This award recognizes a volunteer who shows potential to become a future leader within an AFS-USA chapter, team, or even at the national level.

Mo S.
My name is Mo. I'm a volunteer in the Greater Chicago area. I grew up in Germany. My brother actually went to Australia on an AFS exchange year because my dad works for a company called Zeiss, who used to give out employees, kids scholarships with AFS. So there was a partnership between the company and AFS, and they would give full scholarships to core programs. So my brother went to Australia in 2007 and then my family hosted a boy from Turkey. And then I went to Malaysia in 2010 and then went back to Germany, finished high school, did a lot of volunteering there, helped with organization, which was different, because it was cool to change perspectives from a host student and going to the interview process to actually conducting those orientations myself and. I went to college and started working for a German company that has a subsidiary in Chicago, and moved to the States in 2017 and have been volunteering for AFS here since then. I’m a mechanical engineer, work in sales for that same company still and do a lot of AFS work in my free time.

I think it's just that It's so fulfilling. And working with the students, that's really my favorite thing about it. Seeing how they develop over the course of a year. And then when they go back and you're still in contact with them a couple years later, and they reach out to you, like, hey, this has been such an impactful and meaningful time in my life. That's really what I enjoy the most, and it certainly changed my life a lot. So I just want to, you know, give that back and pay it forward.

Kate M.
Next is Leigh Roberson, who received the Mission Award. This award recognizes an individual who holds or has held a volunteer leadership role at the chapter, team, or national level and has made a significant impact in promoting the core values and mission of AFS through their leadership.

Leigh R.
My name is Leigh Roberson. I am in Denver, Colorado, part of the Colorado Rockies Area Team, and I'm one of our three Area Team Support coordinators.
I volunteer because AFS changed my life. I became an exchange student on a whim because my grandmother was connected to AFS through her neighbors. And got me a paper application, because it was back in the day, and I filled it out, and the next thing I knew, I was on a plane to France. I had no idea how that year would change my life, and I volunteer now, and especially in a Support capacity, because that year made me into who I am, and I want our students and host families to have whatever their best year means to them.
 
Kate M.
The other four awards from this weekend went to Mykie Baron, Carol and John Baldo, Abby Munro-Proulx, and the Colorado Rockies Area Team.

Kate M.
Throughout the weekend, I caught up with folks between sessions, over meals, and whenever possible to talk about why they enjoy volunteering with AFS. Here are some of the responses I gathered. Unfortunately, some recordings had too much background noise to include, but thank you to everyone who spoke with me!
As you’ll hear, many of these volunteers I spoke with are AFS returnees, but not all! Nancy, for example, got involved with AFS when her daughter went to Belgium on an AFS program. Another volunteer, Michael, joined a community theater exchange program to Russia as a teenager. Later, as an adult, he decided to become a host father and volunteer with AFS.

I also spoke with Zandro, a host dad from Georgia who recently became a volunteer. His story was very unique! A few years ago, he was on a flight and happened to sit next to an international student on a J-1 visa- a visa for study- and work-based exchange programs. This conversation inspired him to host a student himself. Zandro then became a volunteer to learn more about the behind-the-scenes efforts that make hosting possible.

So, let’s hear from a couple of folks about what they love about volunteering with AFS.

Drew M.
My name is Drew. I'm a volunteer and liaison with the capital team out in DC, and I've been a volunteer with AFS for 12 years, I think since I was in high school. Went to South Africa, came back, and they became a host brother for five years, and now I'm a liaison. And it's just, it's fun. I think it's a fun thing to do, meeting with all the kids, learning about all the different cultures. And you learn about the different cultures from the perspective of different generations, as you do it longer, which I think is like another dimension of comparison to it. And then also, just the added benefit of get a whole network of, like, friends and family around the world to go see and visit. And like, you'll get invited to weddings. And like, it's just, it's really wholesome to kind of have a whole family just kind of spread around the world.

Karin M.
My name is Karin. I'm the State co-chair for the New Jersey Area Team. My primary role is Events Coordinator. So that's what I do. A lot of organizing orientations for host families and students, organizing cultural events and field trips for everyone, and overnights. And one of the things that I really enjoy about what I do is, you know, it's, it's a way to make a positive impact in the world one student at a time.

Christina P. 
AFS. Hi, I'm Christina Pettinelli. I now live in Yorktown, Virginia. I'm an AFS returnee from 1999 to Sardinia, Italy. I enjoy meeting the other students and also the volunteers. I've now been a member of three Area Teams, and especially with my last move, it was the first people I met in my area. I lived there for about two weeks, and we had orientation. I was right there and just getting to know the students, they actually knew the area better than me, and I was in more culture shock than them at the time of that orientation.

Kim A.
Hi, I'm Kim Allegretti, and I am with the AFS Colorado Rockies Area Team, and, you know, I don't have one motivation for volunteering for AFS. I have so many. And it's, it's partly because of, you know, just my various connections with AFS. I went on program in 1983 to Spain, and that just started the love. My son went on program to Paraguay for a semester, and we've hosted four full time kids and a number of emergency kids. And every single experience has just been well, it, I mean, every single thing has changed our lives. And I want to be a part of changing other people's lives. I want to make sure other kids have the opportunity to do this. I really want to make sure that the volunteers have the opportunity to engage with the kids, and I want to make sure our communities have the benefit all over the world, of our kids going to other countries, and of other kids coming to our country because they think it's, it's, it really gets back to the mission of AFS. We're trying to create a more just and peaceful world, and this is maybe the best way I know how we do this, one at a time.

Michael T.   
So my name is Michael Tabaczynski.

Aaron T.
And I'm Aaron Tabaczynski.

Michael T.
And we are from the Detroit, Michigan area. We have been host parents now for seven years, and within the last few years, we started volunteering with AFS. And one of the things that I absolutely love about AFS as an organization is the experiences and the connections that we've made along the way, not just with our students, but with all the other volunteers in our area, all having the same common interest. That's been really refreshing for us.

Lynn O. 
Hi. My name is Lynn O'Brien, and I'm with the greater Indiana Area Team, and I started AFSing back in high school, and went abroad in 1980 and ever since then, I've always felt the responsibility to give back to help provide these experiences for other people. Because it was just such a milestone, something that was really important in my life, and it really helped me become more independent. You know, at age 18, it helped me spread my wings, and I see this experience as something that I want to help provide for other students.

Marie E.    
I'm Marie Edwards. I'm with the Sierra San Joaquin Area Team. I live in Shaver Lake, California, which is just out of Fresno, up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Kind of like the first day when they arrive, the first day when they arrive off that plane, and they're so excited and all of that. And then you send them off to their families all year, and then they come back at the end, and then you see, you know, what a year they've had. Just to see that.

Kate M.
Saturday morning’s opening session featured a talk by AFS-USA President Tara Hoffman, followed by a panel discussion titled "Re-envisioning the Future of AFS-USA."

Afterward, representatives from four of AFS-USA’s partner countries- Germany, Thailand, Malaysia, and Italy- each led sessions. AFS-USA hosts many students from these countries, so this was a great opportunity for AFS volunteers and host parents to learn more about each one. With this knowledge, they can better support students from these regions and provide well-informed answers to prospective host families’ questions.

Before the sessions began, I spoke with Anja, a staff member from AFS Germany.

Anja H. 
Hi, I'm Anja. I'm from Germany. I'm from, actually, where our headquarters is in Hamburg located, and I'm here in the summit to introduce you into my culture, I would say, into my country, into our lifestyle, into our school system, because everything is actually quite different to your country.

Kate M.
I got to sit in on the country session presented by Wanichar, a Project Manager at AFS Thailand.

Wanichar S.   
Sawadee ka. Good morning! Thank you for your time. You would hear the word -ka. Sawadee ka. Thai ladies, you would end the sentences with the word -ka. Okay if you are a guy, you would end the sentence with the word -krap. Depends who you are.

Kate M.
In addition to the partner country sessions, there were several other sessions throughout the weekend on topics like Study Abroad, creating a team newsletter, and engaging across lines of difference in your community.

Jessica R.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard to AFS Air. We are pleased to be your pilots for your AFS Study Abroad journey today.

Kia V.
We want you to think about your primary goals for the newsletter, and what are the resources available to you.

Frida D.
We must be able to diversify our scope when we think about volunteers, host families, participants, which will require us to engage across lines of difference.

Kate M.
The digital products team also highlighted proposed new features to MyAFS, the portal which is used to complete most volunteer tasks.

Willie T.
Hi, my name is Willie Thompson, and I am the VP of Digital Strategy, a staff person at AFS, and our session today is talking about a new MyAFS community web app. We're in the very early design stages, so we're here getting some feedback from volunteers who are going to be the primary users of the web app. So we're really looking forward to hearing what they have to say and sharing our vision.

Kate M.
AFS has a special term for those who study abroad, return to their home country, and then relocate to the country where they studied: "reverse returnees." There were a few reverse returnees at the Summit, including individuals from Australia, Turkey, Germany, and Pakistan.

One of them, Rahim from Pakistan, stopped by my table at the Marketplace. He had lived with a family in Minnesota in the 1960s as part of his AFS year. His exchange experience, which began and ended with a transatlantic journey, allowed him to see much of the United States.
Rahim, a Muslim who attended a Catholic school in Pakistan, made Jewish friends during his time with AFS- his closest friendships and even his girlfriend at the time were Jewish. His major takeaway? "People are people." He never expected to live in the US again, but his skills as an electrical engineer made it possible, working for Texas Instruments, Boeing, and NASA.

Another reverse returnee I chatted with was Yagmur from Turkey, who had a surprise reunion at the Summit.

Yagmur K.
Yagmur Kan. I was hosted as a YES student in 2008 2009 in California, and later on, I came back to the US to do my PhD in molecular biology and moved to Massachusetts to work in a biotech company.
And as soon as, like, I finished school, and I'm like, okay, like, I have my adult life now I am ready to, like, invest all my, like, free time to AFS and like, give back and be involved.
So this year, I was encouraged to, you know, apply to go to the Summit. And I was selected to go to the summit. So then at the first night at the Welcome Dinner, I saw someone entering and going towards the stage, and I'm, like, trying to recognize that face, and like, oh my god, is that? Is that Abby? And, of course, she's, super involved with AFS. She was like, the Area Team chair, I believe, and she was extremely, extremely involved. And like, I at some point, actually, I stayed in her house for temporarily, and haven't seen her, like, for the last 15 years. So like, I jumped out of my seat, and I just, like, went up to her. I'm like, Oh my God, wait, what if she doesn't remember me? But of course, she remembered me, and she's like, hug me. I'm like, oh my god, I cannot believe it.

Kate M.
She is referring to Abby Munro-Proulx, who was an award winner from this weekend. As we heard at the top of the episode, this weekend was all about connection. Many of these were anticipated- but in Yagmur and Abby’s case, it was an unexpected reconnection after 15 years.

[Country music]

Kate M.
Okay, and lastly, a little bit of Texas-related fun. Some of the volunteers from the Dallas Area Team gave the group a lesson on country line dance. If you’re unfamiliar with line dancing…

A line dance is a choreographed dance in which a group of people dance along to a repeating sequence of steps while arranged in one or more lines or rows. It’s popular in the South, but there are line dances across many cultures. You may know these as the Macarena, Chacha Slide, Electric Slide, Cupid Shuffle… you’ve likely heard some of these songs at weddings or school dances.

Danna B.
We go right tap, left tap, grapevine tap. And then we do left tap, right tap, guess what, grapevine tap.

Kate M.
Then, Sunday afternoon rolled around, and it was time to head back to Brooklyn. I had a wonderful weekend connecting with AFS volunteers, host families, and staff members, and I hope this episode has shown you what makes the AFS community so special. If you’re interested in volunteering with AFS-USA, visit afsusa.org/volunteer. And if you're a current volunteer or host family interested in attending next year’s summit, more information will be available in Summer 2025.

A big thank you to everyone who spoke with me and my baby microphone over the weekend. Thanks also to the National Council, Volunteer Recognition Committee, AFS-USA President Tara Hoffman, the Dallas Area Team, Scott Hume, Briony Rutzinski, and the hotel staff who constantly replenished the coffee.

[Music]

Kate M.
Thank you for listening to The AFS Exchange! I’m Kate Mulvihill. Let us know what you thought of this episode by sending a message to podcast@afsusa.org. You can also rate and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe there as well so you don’t miss any episodes in this 4th season.

This podcast was created by Kate Mulvihill. Social media by Julie Ball and Nina Gaulin.