Go to Soren's email.
May 12, 2011
Our exchange student for next year is Olli Laukkanen, from Finland. Doug and Sheila Anthony have graciously agreed to act as host family again at least until until we have more volunteers step forward. This is extremely important because we must get guarantee forms and background checks done and information back to the outbound Rotary Club in Finland.
We need at least 2 other host families. Each host family would host Olli for approximately 3 months. We plan to ask Smokey Hill High School to host him as this school has been easy to work with, a good environment for past exchange students, as it is fairly close to the Anthony's as well as other past host family volunteers. Some of these actions are being done to complete these deadlines and we may have some flexibility to change later.
Exchange students receive a stipend from the club of $150 per month for incidental expenses. Additionally our club has a number of generous Rotarians who provide additional money for "extra expenses" like year book, graduation expenses, prom , etc. Rotary International (the State Department) prohibits us from providing a stipend to the host family. The host family needs to arrange transportation to and from school and activities. The host family is required to pass a background check and individuals transporting the student alone (if it is a Rotary function), are also required to have that check. There are requirements to help get the student to District Conference as well as other Exchange student activities occasionally but other club members could do a lot to assist and spread the load in these areas. The other things about being a host family is the possibility for all the involvement in the students activities. Foot ball games,choir recitals, concerts, ski weekends, are all things that are not required but make the host experience so rewarding. You get to connect with a remarkable kid form a different culture and develop a lifelong relationship. With Ida, our drive time and meal discussions were some of the most fun.
In summary, this program may do more for people to people connections around the world than any other. You truly see how much we are alike and how being part of your family helps us all become part of our much bigger family!
Email from Soren Damgaard 5/10/2011
Soren ws an exchange student from Denmark in 1979
and stayed with Bill and Carolyn Rapp and Jerry And Kay Allen.
Dear Carolyn & Bill,
Just returned from a two day seminar and was delighted to find a response from you – thank you!
My time i Aurora and with you guys was in retrospect a lifechanging experience and there was and is no real excuse for not keeping in touch – and I am sad that I didn’t! I am also very happy that you accepted my invitation to reconnect.
I am glad to hear that you are all doing well – and 5 grand kids that's great for you! Grandkids is an experience that still in store for us – considering our girls's age we probably have to wait another 5 or 10 years. Please say hello to Missy and Morgan from me and ask them to write or send me their e mails.
It makes no sense to try to make a resume of the past 30 years but I’ll try to headline them anyway.
As you may remember Gitte moved in with me in 1980 and as far as I know she hasn’t considered moving out ever since. We have had our share of disagreements but always been able to solve our differencies amicably. We were married in 1986 og have two girls, Sara was born 1989 Sara and Line 1992 – They both finished Gymasium – business line and are both in the proces of figuring out what to do in life. At the moment we believe that Sara will end up as some sort of office trainee and Line will major in communications at University of Copenhagen – with the speed things are changing in their life at present they may end up doing something completely different. But as long as they are happy – its OK with us. When we got Sara we made a merger of surnames – so we have a common family name ; Møller-Damgaard
Sara Moved out 18 months ago. The rest of us still lives as we have done for the past 20 years in a house in the greater copenhagen area – its about 25 km to Cph City center. I include a photo of the four of us from last summer – the day Line did her last exam at gymnasium- Line is the one with the hat. As i hope you can tell from the photo both girls are pretty much like their mother!
Professionally:
Gitte got a 4 year education as a dental technician – finished schoosol 26 years ago - and are working at a local Dentist and have done so for the past 16 or 17 years.
I got law degree (1987) and trained and additionel 3 years to become a lawyer (Advokat) – and except for the two first years of the 90’s I haven’t really practiced law since. I’m still a full paying member of the bar - mostly to keep the title on my business card!! I went into management. I found I’m good with people and the danish leadership model suited me well.
At present I’m working as a Project Manager - At present the only thing I manage is the realtors we engaged to sell vacation homes for the leisure company I work for. Originally the company owned about 800 vacation homes all situated i danish resorts – there is about 325 units left. It's election year in DK and it looks like we going to have a change in government wich have brought the market for vacation homes to a complete stand still this spring - so far we havent sold a single unit this year! The realtors work hard – but who else is to blame???
30 years boiled down to 14 lines – sort of short isn’t it? well, that leaves something to talk about when we meet again which I’m sure we will.
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