For nearly four decades, members of the Geneseo Rotary Club have welcomed exchange students to Geneseo.
The students spend a year studying at Geneseo High School while living with hosts families. Since 1974, the Geneseo Rotary Club has hosted 31 students from 17 different countries.
“I think it promotes a great understanding,” said Rotarian Barry Snodgrass. He and his family have hosted seven different exchange students, and he served as the club’s exchange chairman for a number of years.
Snodgrass said the program helps dispel stereotypes foreign students might have of America and vice versa.
“I met so many good people and in ‘good’ I mean genuinely kind and open minded. People who wanted to know more about me and my country and were always open to discussion,” said Raphaël Lefèvre, an exchange student from France who studied in Geneseo in 2005-06.
“The year I spent in the U.S. really changed my life,” said Lefèvre. First it allowed me to discover who I really was and how many obstacles I could overcome in my life. It gave me some useful self-confidence which today drives my ambition and my work.
“Second, it allowed me to discover a language with which I was not all that familiar, English. Being able to speak what I hope could now be considered as a relatively fluent English has been a tremendous advantage for my prospects so far. Third, living in a lovely small town like Geneseo and studying in a U.S. high school allowed me to familiarize myself with the issues America is facing today,” he said.
Trine (Bjelland) Ottosen of Norway said, “I wanted to be an exchange student because I wanted to meet new people in a different part of the world. Ottosen was an exchange student in Geneseo in 1994-95. Her father is a member of Rotary Norway Nesodden.
“Geneseo is a beautiful place with lots of caring and loving people. I loved meeting people who wanted to learn more about me and my country,” she said.
Fernanda Florentino of Brazil was an exchange student in Geneseo in 2007-08. “I decided to be an exchange student because I wanted to know how it felt to live in another country, learning about another culture. I picked the United States because I’ve always heard good things about the country and the Americans. I could see for myself that it was all true.”
Snodgrass said the high school students in Geneseo have helped make the exchange program a success. “The kids do really well at accepting the exchange students and most are eager to interact with them,” he said.
Davor Gašparic of Croatia studied in Geneseo in 1998-99. “I enjoyed Geneseo very much because it was a very small community and everyone knew each other,” he said.
Janne Vikeväinen of Finland said, “Back in high school, it was very popular to take a year off and spend it as an exchange student. The most popular country was the USA.” He spent the 1985-86 school year in Geneseo.
“I really enjoyed the time in Geneseo. People are very friendly and curious and easy to be in contact with,” Vikeväinen said. “The most exciting thing was the ‘study’ of the American way of life. In one year, you get to know the meaning of holidays, for example. As a Rotary guest, you change host families a few times, and that helps you to be certain of the philosophy that people have of life in the Midwest of America.”
In their support of the exchange program, members of the Geneseo Rotary Club arrange host families for the students. “We try to get two or three host families for them,” said Snodgrass. The club also pays the student’s school tuition and lunch fees.
The exchange students join the Rotarians every-other-week at Rotary meetings, and Snodgrass said some of the members invite the students over for meals or movie nights.
“I liked the way Rotary took care of us students — taking us to different activities and introducing us to the community,” said Christine (Fredeløkke) Brøgger of Denmark. She was an exchange student in Geneseo in 1995-96.
In addition to hosting foreign students, the Rotary Club has also assisted Geneseo students who’ve been “outbound” exchange students.
“We hope to have more of our kids going abroad,” said Snodgrass. However, in order to meet requirements necessary for graduation, spending a year overseas isn’t always feasible for Geneseo students.
Despite the difficulties, 30 Geneseo High School students have spent a year as an exchange student.
Geneseo graduate Mary Bean currently is studying at the Universidad Del Salvador in Argentina as part of the Rotary’s World Peace Scholarship program.
Only 60 students are selected for the program, which provides scholarships for an 18-month master’s level program in international studies, peace and conflict resolution.
Though the former exchange students are again living in their home countries, many have fond memories of Geneseo.
Ottosen, who is married with two daughters, lives in Nesodden, outside Oslo, Norway. She works for an insurance business. “I often think back on my stay in Geneseo. I have so many good memories from my time in the town. I would love to take my family and visit Geneseo one day,” she said.
Gašparic lives in Zagreb, Croatia, but works internationally as a mining engineer. Gašparic said he enjoyed being involved in sports while in Geneseo and participating in other activities, such as prom, where his peers voted him the 1999 prom king.
Florentino is living in Pato Branco, Brazil, with her sister. She’s attending college and majoring in physiotherapy.
She said, “I enjoyed everything about Geneseo, especially the people, who are really welcoming and friendly. I loved the high school and the kids there, and I loved my host families. They were really great to me, and I miss them a lot.”
Vikeväinen lives with his wife and daughter in Oulu, Finland, where he works as a lawyer. Vikeväinen said he enjoys sports and coaches hockey and track and field, but added, “Geneseo High School football rocks.”
Brøgger and her husband now live in Switzerland. “I work in an oil-trading company. In my team, we take care of all invoicing of delivers of physical power and natural gas in Europe,” she said.
Though she now lives in Central Europe, Brøgger said she still keeps in contact with a number of people she met in Geneseo. “I liked all the possibilities I had while at school (in Geneseo) — playing music, doing sports and participating in all the events.”
Lefèvre lives in Lille, France, and is studying politics and international relations at France’s Sciences Po school. “I have applied to several master’s degree programs in the United Kingdom and would love to work in the area of international relations later on.”
Lefèvre said his time in Geneseo helped strengthen his love of politics. “Studying U.S. government and being able to compare the U.S. political system with the French one was something I particularly enjoyed as a politics fan.
“It was really interesting to sit in Mr. (Steve) Brucher’s world history classroom and to hear the American version of world history. I remember one day when he proposed to me to give a speech to the class on the French view of one of France’s greatest, but deadliest, leaders, Napoleon. He had a very different viewpoint from mine, yet he still allowed me to give to the class my version of the facts and then he gave his, and we had an intense and stimulating debate on Napoleon’s legacy.
“That kind of thing is what I won’t forget about being a student in this lovely city of Geneseo. This example of openness and tolerance is also something which I won’t forget about America,” said Lefèvre.
Rotary exchange students at GHS
1974-75 — Silvia Urguida, Bolivia
1976-77 — Benicio DeMendonca, Brazil
1977-78 — Kym Davidson, Australia
1978-79 — Elizabeth McLaren, New Zealand
1979-80 — Ann Carlekrantz, Sweden
1980-81 — Guy Claud DeBoo, Belgium
1981-82 — Pablo Toriello Arce, Mexico
1982-83 — Mariangela Guimaraes, Brazil
1983-84 — Alejandro Neira, Columbia
1984-85 — Simon Lymberry, Australia
1985-86 — Janne Vikeväinen, Finland
1986-87 — Maria Prat, Spain
1986-87 — Ulla Sutinen, Sweden
1987-88 — Johann Hagenah, Germany
1988-89 — Jose Alejandro Ongay, Mexico
1989-90 — Bettina de Moraes, Brazil
1990-91 — Ana Mitidieri, Brazil
1991-92 — Philip Galbraeth, New Zealand
1992-93 — Lyndon Booth, South Africa
1992-93 — Christian Collin, Belgium
1993-94 — Oliver Moritz, Germany
1994-95 — Trine Bjelland, Norway
1995-96 — Christine Fredeløkke, Denmark
1996-97 — Akiko Mizuno, Japan
1997-98 — Betty Pasos, Mexico
1998-99 — Davor Gašparic, Croatia
1999-00 — Marc Brunner, Switzerland
2005-06 — Raphaël Lefèvre, France
2006-07 — Nina Schouten, Germany
2007-08 — Fernanda Florentino, Brazil
2008-09 — Christoffer Campbell, Denmark
2009-10 — Pei-Jo (Emily) Wu, Taiwan
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