YHS gets foreign-study grant

Yosemite High School is the recipient of one of 15 annual $1,000 grants awarded to high schools throughout the country by the AIFS Foundation’s Academic Year in America (AYA) program.

The American Institute For Foreign Study Foundation is an independent, not-for-profit foundation established in 1967. Its purpose is to promote and contribute to international understanding by initiating and supporting programs that provide cross-cultural educational exchanges, research projects that increase the knowledge of cultures and societies, and activities that communicate and apply that knowledge.

Every year, AYA awards grants to schools for developing programs that increase international understanding. These grants are named for Tony Cook.

For almost 30 years, Mr. Cook served his country as a career officer in the United States Information Agency. He was a graduate of Georgetown University and Georgetown Law School, and he dedicated his life to the ideals of fostering international understanding.

He was a lifelong member of the AIFS Foundation Board of Trustees and, after retirement from the U.S. State Department, was director of the foundation.

Following his death in 1990, he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.

Previous Tony Cook Grants have funded foreign language tapes, sponsorship of a cultural event during Foreign Language Week and the purchase of foreign flags.

Yosemite High School will use its $1,000 grant to purchase a digital camera and accessories for the Connections Club (international students club).

Stephanie Samuels, local coordinator for the Academic Year in America high school exchange program, is presently interviewing families in the Oakhurst area to host a foreign exchange student.

The cross-cultural learning program places teen-agers from Europe, Asia and South America with American families for a semester or school year.

The program gives American families the chance to learn about a foreign culture. Exchange students bring their holiday customs, their native language, and the special dishes of their homelands into their American homes. They arrive as strangers and become “sons” and “daughters” in their American families.

Next year’s participants, chosen from hundreds of applicants, will arrive in California in August. They all speak English, are covered by full medical insurance, and have their own spending money.

Host families receive a travel scholarship, worth up to $1000 off the cost of an AIFS study/travel abroad program.

Schools interested in information about the Tony Cook Grant or families interested in choosing a foreign student to host for the 2001-02 academic semester or year should contact local coordinator Stephanie Samuels at 559-642-3608 or the Academic Year in America’s National Office at (800) 322-4678.