12/11/2007 - Travelzoo and AFS Intercultural Programs Join Forces

AFS Intercultural Programs/USA has formed a new partnership with the Travelzoo Foundation through a grant of $100,000 in support of AFS international exchange scholarships for low-income students in several cities in the United States, Germany and Spain.

“The Travelzoo Foundation’s support of AFS’s global leadership and diversity efforts will make a profound impact in students’ lives,” said Margaret Crotty, President of AFS-USA. “It’s about using international educational travel as a vehicle for helping young people grow as leaders and gain new life skills and intercultural perspectives.”

“We are thrilled to be in partnership with AFS-USA and to support students who may not normally have the opportunity to travel,” said CJ Kettler, President, North America, Travelzoo. “AFS, the Travelzoo Foundation’s first-ever grantee, is a world leader in international education and we’re proud to be able to make a positive impact on the lives of students and their families around the world.”

Thanks to this new partnership, financially deserving high school students in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Barcelona and Munich will experience the world firsthand: as youth ambassadors abroad on educational exchanges. Through living, studying and volunteering internationally, these young people will learn foreign language skills, develop international friendships, and gain intercultural perspectives that will help them develop their potential as tomorrow’s leaders, workers, thinkers, and innovators. Diversity and inclusion are a driving force behind AFS programs, and in the United States the organization operates a national Faces of America Youth Ambassadors Program in partnership with a consortium of youth-serving organizations working together to bridge opportunity gaps in international study abroad.

A partnership with AFS is a natural extension for Travelzoo with employees who live and work in the communities where the Foundation seeks to develop this unique scholarship collaboration. The alliance between the Travelzoo Foundation and AFS enjoyed celebrations on an international scale in November 2007 when groups of Travelzoo employees participated in scholarship launch events in Barcelona (11-23), New York (11-28), Munich (11-28), and Chicago (11-30). These events offered Travelzoo employees a chance to personally meet and interact with the nearly two dozen students who are the inaugural winners of the Travelzoo Foundation AFS Youth Ambassadors Scholarships for 2008.