A happy return from investment

JOSEPH N. BELL

As he approached our table at a New York restaurant a few weeks ago,

it was hard to reconcile the impeccably dressed, superbly confident

man with the tall, lanky tow-headed kid I had once rousted from his

bed, where he had retreated, to help me paint the trim on our house.

True, that was more than 30 years ago, but it was the picture that

played in my head as we embraced. We were very quickly part of a

family again.

This was Ebbe, the remarkably bright and delightful Danish boy who

had lived for a year in our family and attended Corona del Mar High

School as part of the American Field Service student exchange

program. After finishing his schooling and national service in

Denmark, he joined AFS headquarters in New York, worked his way to

its top echelons, married an American girl, sired two athletic sons

and several years ago formed his own international consulting

practice that is clearly prospering.

Throughout those years and despite our geographic separation, we

have never missed an opportunity to connect, mostly during his

business trips to California and our trips to Denmark and New York.

Even when there have been long gaps between these visits, Ebbe has

never been far from his American family, either in his own thoughts

or ours. This is the heart and soul of the AFS experience.

For us, it has been manifested in so many satisfying ways. On our

visits to Denmark, we became a part of Ebbe’s family, too. As a

result, his sister, Ingrid, came to us, and my youngest daughter,

Debby, spent half of her junior year in high school studying in

Denmark, where she learned the language and formed friendships that

have deepened over the years. So satisfying were these experiences

that we later welcomed a third AFS student into our family. Anne is

now doing high-level medical research in Norway, writes wonderful

letters, and came to visit last year.

Reminiscing through these shared experiences with Ebbe in New York

and living once again the joys and satisfactions they brought made it

doubly hard to learn from him that the AFS program is troubled in

many areas where it was once strong -- and one of those places is

Newport-Mesa. This once burgeoning program yearly placed up to two

dozen exchange students in our local high schools, alone. Now,

according to AFS Orange County representative Sandy Jurkowski, there

aren’t that many in the entire county.

“It gets smaller each year,” she told me. “Not very long ago,

there were 40. This year, we said we could take 20, and we only found

homes for 18.”

Just three of those 18 are in Newport-Mesa schools -- girls from

Norway and New Zealand at Harbor High and a boy from Japan at

Estancia. Corona del Mar, where my daughters as well as all three of

our AFS students went to high school, has none, nor does Costa Mesa.

This substantial fall-off is continuing at a time when, as a

nation, we seem to be alienating the citizens of virtually every

other country in the world. Never in my memory have we needed so

badly to build bridges to the members of other cultures. That’s what

AFS did -- and does. The hands that it joined have forged bonds that

transcend national disputes and open doors rather than close them.

That’s the big picture, and if it hits you as fuzzy idealism,

let’s narrow the focus and tell those of you to whom this is a fresh

idea what you might be missing. The young people who come over here

to join an American family for a year are eager to understand our

culture and to share theirs with us. That goes all the way from

eating habits to politics to religion to breaking down myths that

promote misunderstanding. And it works both ways. AFS also finds

homes for American kids who would like to explore another culture

within the embrace of a family.

I found enormous delight in introducing Ebbe to major league

baseball and taking him along to political meetings when I was

covering Ronald Reagan’s first run for governor. And in taking Ingrid

to the Academy Awards where she connected with a young actor in the

lobby afterward. And in convincing Anne that -- unlike what she was

hearing frequently in Orange County -- not all Americans believed

that the Socialist government in Norway was just a euphemism for

communism. Never before in my experience has a laboratory in social

awareness been so much fun. And it is still just as available as it

was when we had our students.

AFS has the machinery to make it work. It can take care of the

paperwork and the arrangements and the problems that inevitably

arise. What it can’t do is find the people who would like to open

their homes. That can come about only through an active, enthusiastic

local organization that seeks out willing host families. And there, I

am told, is the rub.

“It requires at least one person in each school district who is a

dynamo,” Jurkowski told me. “In Newport Beach, that person was Salli

Schroeder, and when she died 10 years ago, there was no one else to

pick up the reins. It takes strong leadership to find volunteers who

will make phone calls and knock on doors and find ways to carry our

message into the schools.

“It’s also getting harder to find host families. Hosts have to be

asked to do it. They won’t even know to offer their homes until they

are told about the program and asked. And there are a steadily

declining number of volunteers all over the country to do that.”

When I asked why this was so, I got the same answer from both

local and national AFS officials. Most of the volunteers have

traditionally been homemakers, they explained, and in the years since

we had our students, there has been an enormous growth in the ranks

of working mothers. Some are still willing to volunteer as worker

bees, but few can or will commit to a leadership role. And so the

local organizations -- like the one in Newport-Mesa -- wither and

die.

So if anyone reading this -- male or female -- is moved to seek

more information about hosting a foreign student or sending a young

American abroad or pumping new life into this program locally, I urge

you to call Sandy Jurkowski at (714) 639-5717. I can tell you without

reservation that opening your home to a young person who might still

be in your life 30 years later, inspiring the same joy and affection,

is well worth all the time and effort you invest.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.