The Start of Something Big
Twenty-seven years ago, in the Fall of 1989, our club joined the Citrus Heights Rotary club in sponsoring an RYE student from Hinnerup, Denmark. Anna Brams lived in the homes of two Citrus Heights Rotarians and one Orangevale Rotarian over the course of the school year. Anna attended Bella Vista High School, and became fast friends with our family and our daughter Jodi.
Our experience with Anna led to Jodi going to South Africa with RYE, as well our hosting two more Scandinavian girls, Susanna from Sweden and Hella from Denmark. These students in turn led to the involvement of more Orangevale Rotarians, including Bryan Daniel and Joyce Fritz. As a result, Bryan and Linda hosted two more students, from France and Germany. My son, convinced he could do whatever his younger sister could do, became an exchange student with CSU Chico in Denmark, and later moved for a while to Japan. Bryan's daughter, Heather, then became an RYE student to France, and his (older) son took a year-long job in England. Heather later lived in France and Mali. (She is the only person I know who has been to Timbuktu!) Both sets of parents also got involved, traveling to South Africa, Denmark, Sweden, France and Switzerland in later years.
Anna is now visiting her families here in the Sacramento area, catching up with our lives, and reconnecting with her good friends. So we have come full circle, with RYE changing our lives by expanding our "families" and horizons. And we owe it all to the first student we shared, Anna Brams.