AFS Club provides cultural experience opportunities by planning trip to New York

Emma Eliot, Staff Writer

In March of 2019, AFS club plans to take its members to Buffalo, New York, to engage cultural experiences.

Tony Wichmann, club sponsor, says the trip will be set up with another school in Buffalo, who will be coming to Manhattan while MHS students visit New York.

New York students will go to their host families upon arrival on March 20, and will attend social and tourist activities throughout the week, such as a pot luck social organized to welcome the visitors, visiting Kanza Prairie, K-State, the crown center, and other activities throughout the Kansas region.

They will be dropped back off at the Kansas City airport, and then the MHS students will begin their visit.

“Later that month, we’re going to do activities around [Buffalo] and one of the main activities is that we’re going to visit Niagra Falls,” Wichmann said, “[This is for a] similar type of exposure, we’ll just see the sights around the area.”

Shawn Lange, Junior, German exchange student, says he has gained a lot from being part of AFS, and can’t wait for the biggest activity yet.

“We have had an ice cream social, we had fundraisers at the K-State footballs games, which the money goes to Buffalo, and gone ice skating,” said Lange,”I’m excited about the global experiences and getting to know people all across the world.”

Other activities throughout the semester have included a fall party and visiting Ollsburg, where the students carved pumpkins and went on hayrides.

The club, students say, has allowed exchange students to have many new experiences, and does so in a way that allows them to feel comfortable.

“It gives them familiar faces they can see throughout the school and people that they know they can talk to about anything,” Elizabeth Chapman, Junior, said. “We really just help them settle in.”

Until the trip arrives, the 22 AFS students preparing to go to Buffalo for the most exciting American experience they’ve had yet excitedly await making new friends, seeing new places, and soaking in the new encounters.