Students, adults call People to People program enriching

This summer, nine students and four adults from Leelanau County will travel to Europe in what will turn into a trip of a lifetime for many of the participants.

Some will see the train and castle made famous in the Harry Potter movies, and others will tour the Eiffel Tower and the Vatican. No mater where the students go as part of the People to People student ambassador program, however, the goal is “to teach them to understand the world.”

JOHN J. SHARP of Suttons Bay (right) is pictured
in Sydney Harbor with fellow students Tommy Booth (left)
of Kingsley and Mark Hamel of Petoskey during a three-week
People to People visit to Australia last year.

Two programs – one a tour for high school-aged students of England, France and Italy, and the other for middle school students to England and Scotland – will take place during the month of July. Leelanau visitors will meet with others from around northern Michigan who will form a larger group of about 45. Additionally, the northern Michigan delegation will meet with other Midwestern delegations so that nearly 150 students will take part in the European tour.

Kathy Weaver, lead adult delegate for one of the groups, can’t wait for the trip.

“I’m involved in this program because I love spending time with the students and watching them learn. I also love to travel,” said Weaver, in her fifth year with the People to People program.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower created People to People in 1956 as a way for ordinary citizens of different nations to solve their differences and find a way to live in peace.

“When students get to travel abroad and see for themselves how other countries are, and what the people are like, it’s the best way to teach them to understand the world. World understanding leads to world peace,” said Weaver.

This year, Weaver is retiring from teaching special education at Suttons Bay Middle School. But her involvement with students will not end there.

“I want people to know that we have some absolutely wonderful, hard-working young people in our community. I’m just pleased to get to know them better and be able to travel with them,” she said.
Weaver said all students going on the tour to England, France and Italy attend Suttons Bay High School. Weaver, her husband, Roger, and co-delegate leader Julie Dalton are all from Suttons Bay.

Suttons Bay eleventh graders Sara Blodgett and Bea Kurek, tenth graders Lucy Perkins and Cody Shumway, and ninth graders Kelly Adamson, Abby Branson and Rebbeca Eike will be attending the three-week program from July 3-20.

Two younger students from Glen Lake School, Elyse Kissau and Kira Bailey, were nominated by their fifth grade teacher, Dan Hobbins, and will travel to England and Scotland from July 11-30 with delegate leader Cindy Crandall, a Suttons Bay Middle School teacher who is leading a northern Michigan delegation of 5th and 6th grade students.

Delegate leaders said students need to be nominated to be in the program and go through an interview process. Not everybody who is nominated gets in the program.

“We are looking for students who will represent our country well overseas,” Dalton said. “People to People students are ambassadors of the United States, really, and so we’re looking for people who are respectful, polite, and all around good students.”

Weaver and Dalton said that anyone can nominate a student for the program, although most nominations come from teachers.

Suttons Bay senior John Sharp was a student ambassador last year when he went on a three-week trip to Australia.

“Being on the People to People trip was a completely new experience for me … going to a completely different continent …. being on the other side of the world … crossing the date line. It really made me open my eyes and want to see more of the world, and it made me realize that while people from other countries have their differences, we have more in common than not,” said Sharp.

This year’s high school program costs nearly $6,000, and the middle school program is around $5,200. Students also need to complete community service and complete 12 hours of orientation before they go on the trip.

Many of the students, like Kissau, raise money for their trips.

Lori Kissau, said that her daughter has been saving every nickel she can ever since she decided to go on the trip.

“Elyse has been working very hard to raise the money for this trip. She’s been collecting cans and bottles, has gotten sponsorships from area civic organizations, and has been working small jobs to get the money together,” she said, adding that her daughter has raised 50 percent of the money needed for the trip.

Organizers say the students will be in for a life-changing experience.

“After kids go on a People to People program, they come back changed, no doubt about it,” Dalton said. “Many of them look back on high school and say that People to People was the best thing they ever did.”

For more information about the next year’s People to People Student Ambassador Program, contact Kathy Weaver at 271-4578 or at kmweav@yahoo.com.