On November 23, 2024, Mr. Matthew Talboo traveled with three students to see the city of lights: Paris. Patrick Lyons, Kennedy Dehler and Sarah Putorti, three of the presidents of Woodgrove’s Global Ambassadors club, were traveling to Paris for the Normandy International Youth Leadership Summit. 18 countries were represented, including Italy, Estonia, Costa Rica, and Indonesia. Along with all the experiences these students gathered, they also made connections and worked together.
Patrick Lyons, Co-President of Global Ambassadors and an ex-geography bee champion, was one of the students who recently went to France. “They were some of the nicest people that I’ve ever met, and they made the experience so much better,” Lyons said about his host student Robin Cardone and his family in Le Havre. From sight seeing to scavenger hunts through crowded streets, he commented, “We just went coffee shop to coffee shop, just exploring the streets of the city. That was definitely the coolest part about it.” Along with exploring the city, they also attended the Youth Leadership summit where they played multiple different team building games, sang, and danced together. “Being able to speak with different students and ask them questions. That was the biggest thing. All their students are some of the best at their schools and in their countries. They’re selected for a purpose, so being able to ask questions, ask them what are the problems that you face, that was one of the most interesting things,” Lyons explained. “I’m still in touch with my host student. I’ve been talking to him a lot. I’m trying to convince him to come back here to the US for a little bit. He was great. I’m still in contact with students from a variety of countries, Britain, Spain, Italy, and all of them were very, very nice.”
Sarah Putorti, Co-President of Global Ambassadors and an active part of the school community, was also in the group Talboo brought. Putorti stayed with “a French girl named Maёlle and then her mom, Mrs. Haté, who was an English teacher at the school” and the rest of their family. Her favorite part of the trip consisted of “the D-Day beaches…and then in Paris, I would say, I liked walking around and experiencing things. We went to a cathedral one night and we got a lot of crepes, so that was probably my favorite part about Paris.” Putorti also made very strong bonds with her host family and even with other students through the summit, saying, “The activities involved workshops and things that made us think about international issues or how to solve common issues in the world. Also bonding with the other students, getting to know more about their countries, where they came from, the cultural aspect.” She also spoke about a pact made between newfound companions. She said, “If they come to my country or I come to their country, I’ve already talked to some of the people I’ve made friends with and we have a little pact where if you come here or if I go there, we’re meeting up, you know.” Along with the new friends, Putorti found at the summit she also has made a deep connection with her host family, “I’m still in touch with my host family… the host girl who was my age, I have her Instagram and WhatsApp and then same with the host mother, I text her occasionally on WhatsApp and Instagram.”
Kennedy Dehler is the third Co-President of Global Ambassadors that took the trip. Dehler also stayed with Maёlle and Mrs. Haté with Putorti, a longtime friend. Dehler spoke about how the summit experience changed how she views her life, saying, “I think that I see the world in a different way now…I think I just notice more about where I live.” Dehler has, out of the three, had the least communication with her host family since leaving France, but that does not mean she did not also form new connections. Dehler explained, “All the places that we came from were very different, but there were a lot of similarities…A lot of us had the same perspective of things, which I wasn’t expecting, but also I mean, there were a lot of differences. We really realized that nobody was that different from each other.”
Talboo, the chaperone and social studies teacher who hosted the excursion, said, “I thought the trip was excellent. It’s very important that we take good students who are here to do good things and do good work and the students that we took, Patrick, Sarah and Kennedy were absolutely amazing. That makes all the difference. So my biggest takeaway from the entire event is just how awesome those three Woodgrove students are.” Along with his students, Talboo also made plenty of connections with other countries. He explained, “Well, for me, it’s a little bit of a business trip. We’re trying to establish connections that we can utilize to further our international programs here in Woodgrove. So we made great connections with South Africa, with Romania, with the Netherlands, with the United Kingdom…We’re gonna be planning to take a trip to Morocco in the future… It’s just amazing that we are afforded these types of opportunities.”