Driving Change: The Legacy of AFS Volunteers

For this year's AFS Founders' Day, observed on April 7th, we delve into the remarkable origins of the organization during World War I. This episode recounts the story of the American Field Service, where young American volunteers courageously served as ambulance drivers, years before the US even officially entered the war.

The journey from those early days to the AFS we know now is filled with wealthy socialites, treacherous drives, at least one unpleasant breakup, and the raw determination of young men facing unimaginable circumstances. In this episode, in conversation with historian Thomas Fife, we will cover the significant expansion of the American Field Service beyond its initial base in Paris, as it became a vital support element for the Allied forces.

That same spirit of the original World War I volunteers – that deep desire to connect with people across cultures – is alive and well in AFS volunteers today, whose story is just as vital, though thankfully less dramatic and dangerous. They are the modern-day drivers, working tirelessly to promote intercultural understanding, facilitate life-changing exchanges, and build lasting bridges between communities.

Guest:
Thomas Fife

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

• 5:55 Beginning of WWI
• 13:19 A. Piatt Andrew
• 18:22 Model Ts in the Mountains
• 22:00 Battle of Egos
• 26:12 The Big Question: Why?

Transcript

Kate M.
Hello and welcome to The AFS Exchange. I'm Kate Mulvihill. On this podcast, we share real stories from the AFS community. We're here to explore how exchange experiences change lives, one conversation at a time.

Thomas Fife
And the question that's always inevitable, is, why? Why would these young men do this?

Kate M.
This month, AFS-USA celebrates Founders' Day, so it's a perfect time to delve into the fascinating history that makes AFS unique. If you’re listening to this podcast right now, you probably know AFS for its student exchanges, but its origins lie in the American Ambulance Field Service during World War I. Imagine: volunteer ambulance drivers in France, ferrying the wounded from battlefields to hospitals. It's a story that spans decades and continents.

And it has its twists and turns. The seeds of today’s AFS were planted years before the US even officially entered into World War I. The journey from those early days to the organization we know now is filled with wealthy socialites, treacherous drives, at least one unpleasant breakup, and the raw determination of young men facing unimaginable circumstances.

Looking at AFS volunteers today, their story is just as vital, though thankfully less dramatic and dangerous. That same spirit of the original World War I volunteers- that deep desire to connect with people across culture-  is alive and well in AFS volunteers today. They are the modern-day drivers, working tirelessly to promote intercultural understanding, facilitate life-changing exchanges, and build lasting bridges between communities. While these early volunteers could track the number of wounded they transported, and while we have numbers on the students, volunteers, and host families involved in AFS over the years, it's still impossible to fully quantify the profound impact of these individual connections. It's the dedication of these volunteers, past and present, who truly keep the mission moving forward. They are, indeed, the modern-day drivers of AFS.

Over these next two episodes, I'm joined by historian Thomas Fife, author of the upcoming book The Harvard Section: The History of American Field Service Section Three. He'll help us unpack the early years of AFS, focusing on the volunteer ambulance drivers and the enigmatic A. Piatt Andrew. In this episode, we'll focus on the 'why' behind their service: why would these privileged young men leave their comfortable lives to risk everything in war-torn France? And how does their dedication connect to AFS's mission today?

Then, in our next episode, we'll explore Thomas's own unexpected connection to AFS history- it all started with a mysterious trunk purchased from Ohio! We'll also dive deeper into the lives of the volunteers featured in his book, revealing some truly remarkable stories. Even if you're not a history buff, if AFS has touched your life, this story is for you. It’s… courage, sacrifice, and the unexpected roots of an organization that continues to change lives.

[Music]

Thomas Fife
My name is Thomas William Fife. I am an amateur historian and writer about to publish a book on the history of the early days of the American Field Service and the creation of what becomes Section Three.

But in order to tell the story, I had to go back to the beginning, because That was one of the things that I found immensely interesting, was, How did all this get started? Who? Who were these people? Why?
I didn't understand all this at first, but the American Field Service that we refer to is an offshoot of an earlier organization that and those two organizations sort of had a breakup. 

Kate M.
But there wasn’t a ton of info around this breakup…

Thomas Fife
So I found it all very mysterious, and that's enough to get me digging. I'm always after the esoteric. If anything, this book is a testament to my own curiosity and obsession.

[Paris ambiance sounds]

Kate M.
So we’re going to start the story in Paris in the early 1900s. Amongst all the French walking down the cobblestone streets, one could find a lot of Americans. During the summer months, the American population of the city could exceed 100,000 people.

Thomas Fife
You had, you had American expats that were living either part of the time or year round in Paris. Some of these people, they're very wealthy people. They you know, they would summer in one place and winter in another, and it was all part of that lifestyle.
Inevitably, people get sick and get hurt, and you can look at the period newspapers, and there's all these lurid tales of Americans on vacation, getting sick and having difficulty communicating with French doctors and being stuck in dubious French hospitals or unscrupulous hotel managers putting people out on the street because they thought they were contagious.

Kate M.
As you can imagine, this was a problem. So, in 1906 a group of American physicians and businessmen raised money and they built what became known as the American Hospital of Paris. It’s technically just outside of Paris itself, to the northwest, in Neuilly-sur-Seine.

Thomas Fife
State of the art facility for its days, 24 rooms, completely modern, lovely gardens and the pride of the Americans in Paris.

Thomas Fife
Fast forward, 1914 France mobilizes her army. World War I is starting.
There's a lot of chaos. People are kind of frightened. They don't know what's happening. The German army is coming. Refugees are pouring into Paris.

Kate M.
And into this turmoil steps Dr. Magnin, the director of the American Hospital of Paris. He heads straight to the American Embassy, to Ambassador Myron T. Herrick, with an idea. He wanted to offer the services of the American Hospital to the French government.

Thomas Fife
This is sort of a patriotic zeal. I mean, it’s a 24 room hospital, and it was just sort of to show American resolve and enthusiasm and affinity to the French in their time of need.

Kate M.
Ambassador Herrick, though, was a bit preoccupied. He politely thanked Dr. Magnin and went back to his 'more important duties.' But that evening, he called together the influential American businessmen of Paris- the Chamber of Commerce, bankers, and so on. Except, he forgot to invite the hospital director.

Thomas Fife
And Magnin was a little bit tiffed. He's a little miffed that he got excluded.

Kate M.
The next day, Ambassador Herrick realized his error, and quickly reached out to Dr. Magnin, saying, “Sorry, didn't mean to forget you. Your offer of the services of the American Hospital, sounds great. I'll go speak to the French government about it.”

Thomas Fife
You know, the idea was that the French army would set up some hospital tents, maybe send a couple of doctors over. Well, the French government had bigger ideas. There's a school building called the Lycée Pasteur.  It's 1200 rooms. It takes up an entire city block. It was brand new. The workers were still working on it. And when they mobilized the army, probably more than half the workers had to leave.
So the French take the Americans over there and say, if you guys really want to help us out, we want you to take over this building.

Kate M.
And this building? Was practically a construction site. No windows, debris everywhere, no electricity, no running water, no heat. And the French had conditions.

Thomas Fife
They had to do all this. They had to pay for it themselves. They had to agree that in the event that the Germans laid siege to the city of Paris, which is a distinct possibility, the Americans had to agree to remain, even though the French government was bugging out and leaving Paris, and they had less than 24 hours to decide whether they were going to do this.

Kate M.
So the American Chamber of Commerce, they all meet, they agree, and they secure a loan. And just like that, the Ambulance of the American Hospital of Paris was born. They opened their doors on September 1st, 1914, less than a month after France entered World War I. It quickly became a hub for Americans in Paris.

Thomas Fife
And people begin to volunteer and help, donating money, some of these people donate their cars. You've got women who have probably never touched a broom in their lives, sweeping and helping to paint and scrape.

[Construction sounds]

Kate M.
The American community in Paris really stepped up, donating not just money, but their time, their skills, and even their cars. But these donated cars, while helpful, weren't quite enough. They needed more, and they needed the right kind.

Thomas Fife
Mrs. Anne Vanderbilt, who was married into the Vanderbilt family, supposedly approaches the director of the Ford Motor Company of Paris with the notion that Ford donated 10 cars to the hospital. And the director was a guy named Harold White.
So not only did Harold agree to donate these ambulances, but he also loaned the hospital some Ford employees to drive them.

Kate M.
And then there were also volunteers, like J. Paulding Brown, a recent Harvard grad who found himself in Paris when the war broke out.

Thomas Fife
There were a few Americans that just happened to be in Paris as a boy named J. Paulding Brown who had just graduated from Harvard, and he was in Paris. He was supposed to start teaching English when the war came, and he's out of a job. And so he finds his way down to the brand new ambulance. You know that Lycée Pasteur, and you know, how can I help? And they said, What can you drive? He said, Well, yeah, so there you go. So this is how it starts.

Kate M.
And so, with sturdy cars and drivers, the American Ambulance Service was born. They transported wounded, not from the front lines, but from battlefields and train stops back to the ambulance in Paris.

Thomas Fife
These ambulance men, they recovered their first wounded in the first battle of the Marne, they drove out to the battlefield and brought the wounded back.

Kate M.
The Battle of the Marne, September 1914, marked a turning point. Word spread back home, especially among Harvard and Yale students and graduates. But this was still the American Ambulance Service, operating locally from Paris. So, where does the Field come in? How do we get to American Field Service?

Thomas Fife
Well, here's, here's what it means. It was an early distinction between the guys that remained in Paris and the guys that drove ambulances in the field outside of Paris.

Kate M.
And how did these guys leave Paris? What prompted the creation of the American Field Service? Well, in October 1914…

Thomas Fife
The Brits show up in Paris looking for ambulances, and they show up at the American Hospital. The American Hospital not only offers them some cars, they offer them some drivers. The Brits are like, “Yeah, great.” So these guys go, and that's the first contingent that ever leaves Paris. That's the start of the American Field Service.

Kate M.
A world history reminder that the British entered the war in early August, a day after the French. The United States won’t join for another 2 ½ years. So, that first group of ambulance drivers was sent up to the north, to a region called Pas-de-Calais. And they did great. So, all through the winter of 1914 into 1915, more and more volunteers headed to the north of France.

Thomas Fife
And it's so successful that they start asking for more and so more contingents of Americans are just detached away from Paris, and they're assigned to these little French villages.
They're still in the rear. They're not up on the front line. The Brits don't want these amateurs anywhere near the front line, but it's helping them immensely, because they've got true or hospital trains full of wounded, and then they pull up to a railroad station, and the Americans would be waiting to transfer the wounded from the train to the car, and then The Americans would would transfer these guys to whatever the Brits converted a lot of resort hotels along the English Channel into hospitals.

Kate M.
However, by spring of 1915, some challenges arose.

[Whoops, cars revving]

Thomas Fife
And it's great at first, but it becomes boring and repetitive. And depending on who was in charge of that squad, the discipline of those squads varied, and they started having problems, because you've got, well, you got some guys that are probably used to doing what they want to do, you know, they've got a little bit of money. And they got these cars, and they're starting to drag race these cars a little bit. And they think, “I'm a volunteer. I don't have to abide by any kind of military customs.” And there's problems.
It's all just a mess. Guys are guys are absent. They're going on joy rides with their cars. They're not there when they're supposed to be. They're wrecking their cars. And word is starting to trickle back into Paris, and this has a potential for being very embarrassing.

Kate M.
These American Field Service volunteers needed some... supervision. Robert Bacon, the Director at the American Ambulance Hospital, wasn't thrilled with their behavior. He was a former U.S. Ambassador to France, and knew this was a PR disaster waiting to happen.

Thomas Fife
He's like, we gotta put we gotta get somebody in charge of these guys.

Kate M.
Enter A. Piatt Andrew. This guy's resume was packed. Princeton grad, PhD in Economics from Harvard, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, director of the US Mint, and even part of the group that created the Federal Reserve. But at this point in time, he was on the job hunt. Fresh off a congressional defeat, he was looking for something new. He had written to Bacon, asking for work. And Bacon’s response?

Thomas Fife
Well, look, you know, I'd love to have your help, but I don't have a position that would really fit your resume. I can put you to work as a regular driver. If something else comes up in the future we'll definitely talk about it. Andrew's like, Fine, that's good for me.
And so when all this discipline stuff starts to raise its ugly head, Bacon's like I got the guy for you. So he promotes Andrew from within the ranks over the heads of a lot of men who had been there since August of 1914, yeah.

Kate M.
So in March 1915, Andrew was placed in control as the Director of the Field Service. It’s important to know that Andrew wasn't just a disciplinarian. He also had a vision.

Thomas Fife
Now, Andrew was a dynamo. He had a vision for the American Field Service that was far beyond the small framework that the hospital had originally envisioned.
Andrew knew what the problem was, that the guys were bored, that this repetitive journey in the rear with the gear, delivering guys to hospitals was just not as exciting for certain mindsets, certain types. And he foresaw, sort of a dynamic youthful service to come over, bringing young men over to help France.

Kate M.
Andrew saw the potential for these men to be on the front lines. He was a game changer. And some other words to describe Andrew?

Thomas Fife
“Quite adept at being a politician,” “erudite,” “socially conscious,” “had an illustrious career,” “spoke fluent German,” “he was persistent,” “good looking guy.”

Kate M.
And he had connections. He moved fast. Within two weeks, he was trying to convince the French to let his guys go to the front.

Thomas Fife
It's quick. And I don't think he even consulted with the guys back at the American Ambulance Hospital, the Transportation Committee. I think he eventually told him what he was doing, as opposed to asking permission if he could do it.
So he goes right to the French High Command and says, I got this idea. I want to put American volunteer ambulance drivers attached directly to the French army in the field, and share the danger and the hardships with the ordinary French soldier.

Kate M.
The French, at first, weren't all that thrilled with the notion and but Andrew was persistent, and they finally acquiesced on a trial basis, to allow a section to be attached to the French army that was fighting in Alsace, a region to the east, today on the border with Germany.

Thomas Fife
Andrew handpicks a group of guys to go out. They were dubbed Section Z. There was Section X, Y and Z that became Sections One, Two and Three, but Section Z was the first to get out there. And almost all the guys were Harvard guys. Almost all.
These guys had to make a good show, because they were the trial, the prototype, if these guys did well, that the thing could expand. It does well, and the French are very happy.

Kate M.
This trial run with Section Z happened in April 1915, which is why we chose April to celebrate Founders' Day. But that initial success was just the beginning. The challenging terrain of Alsace quickly revealed a critical need for the unique skills of the drivers, and their vehicles.

Thomas Fife
In all the little villages along the river, there's field hospitals that are scattered and a lot of their work is transferring wounded from one field hospital to another, or taking them up on top of a mountain on their way back to St Maurice, which is their headquarters.
And so the roads were really rugged, and the French ambulances could not make the climb to get up into these Alpine mountain areas.
The wounded were forced to be transported down in horse drawn wagons, horse drawn ambulances and by mule.
Imagine having a broken femur and having to be strapped to the side of a mule. In the amount of time that it would take to get a wounded man from the front lines all the way down eventually to this field hospital would be, you might be wounded for eight hours or longer before you ever saw a doctor. So the mortality rate you can imagine.
So when the Americans showed up with these Model T's, they're looking and thinking, I think we could make it, you know, I think we could do it.

Kate M.
Initially, when Section Z joined the French Army in Alsace, they were restricted to the valleys. The French believed cars couldn't handle the mountain roads.
But… the Americans were seeing these French soldiers being brought down the mountains on horses and mules. They're thinking, 'Hey, we've got these Model Ts, they can handle this terrain, the next guy with a broken femur can get care a whole lot quicker.’' So, they pitched the idea to the French, and by June 1915, they had convinced the medical authorities to let them try accessing the first aid posts in the mountains.

Thomas Fife
And it changed the nature of the service almost overnight, because they could get up there and meet these mules, mule trains and wounded that were being brought in, and transfer them to their ambulances and shorten the trip by half. And so obviously, the mortality rate would decline, and the French just were so enamored with the courage and of these young Americans is again, you know, they're volunteers. The French are just, “What is going on here with these guys?!”, and the French were so impressed that they wanted more men, more ambulances.

Kate M.
So, reinforcements arrived from Paris, bringing the section's numbers up to 25. Section Z was then renamed Section Three. A. Piatt Andrew, his handpicked crew, and his innovative thinking had earned him major points with the French High Command. However, back at the American Hospital of Paris, they had a rather different view...
Split

Thomas Fife
So what happens effectively is there's a battle of egos between the hospital and the Field Service. I think some of the men didn't like Andrew, and I think Andrew didn't like some of them, and more importantly, Andrew was very cognizant of PR and he encouraged the guys to write letters and to fundraise to get the word out, to get recruits. You know, the deans of some of these Ivy League colleges were on board, and they were actively enthusiastic about the idea of these young men going over there.

Kate M.
The problem was, all new recruits and supplies had to go through the hospital, specifically, through men who weren't exactly Andrew's biggest fans. This created a bottleneck.

Thomas Fife
There are some elements back in the hospital that think that this whole thing is a distraction and a detriment, that they need to focus on the hospital, not these gallivanting ambulance men out in the field.

Kate M.
Andrew and his men kept fundraising, but the money earmarked for the Field Service was slow to arrive, which really hindered their operations.

Thomas Fife
The Americans have to maintain a certain number of men in the field and available ambulances in order to maintain the contractual obligations that they said with the French.
And so eventually it comes to a head. And in February of 1916, depending on who you talk to, the American Field Service, they're invited to leave.
And the thing is interesting is they were very cognizant of the press, and they tried to keep this out of the papers.

Kate M.
So, information about this 'breakup' is scarce. But we do know that Andrew, with his vast network, was able to turn it around quickly. He secured a new team, including a former Harvard quarterback named Stephen Galatti. If that name rings a bell, it’s Steven Galatti who would later envision the early AFS exchange programs.

Thomas Fife
Andrew secures a new headquarters for the Field Service in Paris. 21 Rue Raynouard was a mansion that stretched all the way down to the Seine. In fact, you could see the Eiffel Tower across the river.
Sadly, all that area is now offices. It's all been torn down. But at the time it was just a mansion, and there was an exterior building, and there was a big park and trees, and there was a cave underneath the mansion which was like a cave with a natural spring. Benjamin Franklin supposedly tested some of his kites, did electrical experiments in the backyard, in the gardens. So, that becomes the AFS headquarters, so that it remains so until the end of the war.

[John Philip Sousa, ‘Bullets and Bayonets’]

Kate M.
The United States jumps into the war in April 1917. And immediately, the question becomes: what happens to the American Field Service? Would they keep going as before, or would they be pulled to help out the Americans directly? Andrew, being Andrew, went big. He basically proposed that the American Field Service become a crucial part of the American Expeditionary Force, the AEF, and stay as its own unit within the U.S. Army. The French were on board with this idea as well.

However, the American leadership were not. They wanted command positions to go to professional soldiers, not 'outsiders' like Andrew. So, the U.S. Army created its own ambulance service, which was modeled on the American Field Service, but ten times the size. Andrew and Galatti were offered positions, but they were placed under colonels who had very limited experience with ambulance work or with France. Within a few months, the American Field Service was officially merged into the U.S. Army Ambulance Corps. And… that’s the end of the story. Well, the World War I story.

Kate M.
But let’s go back to the question I asked at the top of this episode. The question that has been driving this whole story: Why? Why did these young men, often from privileged backgrounds, volunteer for this incredibly dangerous and difficult service? What motivated them? And how does that connect to what AFS is all about today?

Thomas Fife
And the question that's always inevitable, particularly when you start telling the average person about this phenomenon of American Field Services, the question is, why?
Why would these young men do this?

Kate M.
I mean, first off, they could. They had the financial means to do so.

Thomas Fife
These guys tended to come from New England, New York, old money. Lot of them were, again, Ivy League guys. They hate to say that they were gentlemen of leisure, but a lot of them really, they weren't. They weren't chasing that dollar. You know, they didn't have to, and so they had it afforded them the luxury of being able to take time off from their lives and go to Europe.
Today, I would kind of equate it to imagining a bunch of guys from Harvard, a week after graduating from Harvard, they're on a plane to Kyiv to go drive ambulances on the front line with the Ukrainians.

Kate M.
As I said, they could, but they didn’t have to! I mean, what they were volunteering to do… it wasn’t easy.

Thomas Fife
Because it's very confusing. You had guys that were volunteering prior to our declaration award with
Germany. The government, at the time was desperately trying to keep us out of the war and keep us neutral, yet these young men felt compelled to to travel to France on their own volition, their own expense, and subject themselves to at the least, you know, living rough And uncomfortably at the very worst, death and dismemberment.

Kate M.
But there was a sense of duty, a desire to be of use. Thomas found that in their letters, this recurring theme.

Thomas Fife
I think the overall idea was, there was this urge to want to help. If you read their letters, there's this sort of recurring theme that they want to be of some use.

Kate M.
Thomas also mentioned the concept of 'noblesse oblige.’ Literally, nobility obligates, that with privilege comes responsibility.

Thomas Fife
But at the same time, you know they, I honestly think a lot of them were just extraordinarily curious.

Kate M.
Also, yes, many of these men had already heard about the Field Service and were curious. But also, a lot of them had a real connection to France.

Thomas Fife
Some of them had been to France in their youth, and there was a great affinity for France and French culture. And a lot of them talk about, you know, seeing France at war.
These guys grew up in a different society than today. You know, in some cases, their fathers or grandfathers were civil war veterans.

Kate M.
Despite their connection that many of them had with France and the sadness of seeing the country at war, they weren't vehemently anti-German. Hatred towards the German people wasn't why they crossed the Atlantic.

Thomas Fife
I just assumed that these people were rabid francophiles and anti-German. But that was absolutely not the case at least initially.
In fact, it surprised me, you know in their letters, in their diaries, they of course, they were allied and had strong feelings for France, but they also tried to see the war from a German perspective, because you got to remember that, you know, we're neutral at the time.

Kate M.
But that initial neutrality didn't last forever, especially for the men of Section 3 who were the first to get close to the front lines. The reality of war changed everything.

Thomas Fife
But that feeling of neutrality rapidly begins to wane once they start to see it first hand. They're seeing fresh wounded, they're seeing the French army. Living shoulder to shoulder, breaking bread with these guys, and that only deepens and manifests more strongly as the service of the Section 3 guys begins to expand.

Kate M.
As the service expanded, these men were not only serving with the French and the Brits, but also with men from all over the world. A bit like AFS today, right? Well, sort of...

Thomas Fife
And so there were two American Field Service sections that were sent to the Balkans to help the French. They all talk about just wide eyed, because it's like all the colonial armies of the world are there. I mean, there's Russians and there's Scots, there's Irish and there's Africans, and there's folks from Asia, India, and then Turks and Bulgarians and Serbians, and it's this kaleidoscope of accents and smells and sites.

Kate M.
So, there's no single answer as to why these men volunteered for the American Field Service. It's a mix of reasons, and likely some we'll never know. They wanted to be useful, they felt a duty tied to their privilege, they had an affinity for France, they were driven by curiosity, and, let's face it, they had the means to go to France. Not for work, but to volunteer and potentially risk their lives. Okay, so, how did an ambulance service made up of well-to-do American men become an international student exchange program?

Thomas FIfe
As far as the World War I guys are concerned, at least during the actual conflict. The notion of all this, what it would later turn into, I don't think was ever even considered. I think they would, they would be fascinated.

Kate M.
After World War I, the spirit of international cooperation that drove AFS didn't just vanish. Volunteers who saw the horrors of war wanted to build peace. And to do this, the AFS Association was established in May 1920 to coordinate reunions and run the AFS Fellowships for French Universities program. This program was all about building peaceful ties between the U.S. and France.

In 1936, a few years before the start of World War II, A. Piatt Andrew passed away. Once the war started, his right-hand man, Stephen Galatti, immediately organized another ambulance section and sent it to France, led by Lovering Hill, a veteran of the original Field Service.

After World War II though, AFS truly transformed. Stephen Galatti believed that fostering understanding among young people was key to preventing future conflicts. He understood what those World War I volunteers discovered firsthand: that creating connection across cultures is essential for peace. So, in 1946, he launched educational exchanges, where students lived with host families and attended local schools. You know, the AFS we know today!

And the spirit of those original volunteers, that desire to connect with people across cultures, that’s still alive in AFS volunteers today. They’re the modern-day drivers, working to promote intercultural understanding, facilitating exchanges, and building bridges between communities.

And when you look at AFS returnees, you see not just international leaders and changemakers, but also everyday people transforming their own communities. They're teaching their host countries about their own, and then teaching their home communities about the world. It's a butterfly effect- who knows how many conflicts have been avoided, or how many minds have been opened, because of a single exchange student, or a dedicated volunteer?

Kate M.
Thank you for joining us for this special Founders' Day episode. A big, big thanks to Thomas Fife, historian and author of the upcoming book, The Harvard Section: The History of American Field Service Section Three. You can learn more about it at harvardsection.com. Later this month, you’ll hear from us again, where we’ll dive into the lives of those first Field Service volunteers and explore Thomas's own unexpected connection to AFS history- all starting with a trunk from Ohio!

[Music]

Kate M.
Thank you for listening to The AFS Exchange! We have a lot of exciting stories coming up for this 5th season, including many interviews with hosted students, host families, and returnees. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode! Send a message to podcast@afsusa.org. Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and be sure to subscribe. To learn more about AFS-USA and international exchange, visit afsusa.org. 

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