SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Students in South Burlington have been exchanging cultures and friendships with high schoolers in Hameln, Germany, for 50 years.
“After all, we all are alike, and we can just like, connect on the spaces. And I think it’s really beautiful to know that there’s like, slowly of people connecting, finding friendships,” said Lilly Schimunek, a student visiting from Germany.
Schimunek is following in her father’s footsteps. He did this same exchange with South Burlington decades ago.
“I really just enjoy the idea of, like, going to a place where my father has been for, like, following a legacy somehow. So, it’s really nice just to meet all these people here,” Lilly Schimunek said.
She’s paired up with South Burlington High School senior Lexi Cote.
“Doing an exchange like this or just traveling in general really opens up your experience and your mind to other cultures, other people, how they live, and it really puts you it puts your mind more out in the world,” Cote said.
Cote says it has been a positive experience meeting and hanging out with the German students.
“They’re very nice. So nice. I was really worried they wouldn’t I guess they wouldn’t like me, but they’re very sweet. We have a good like friend group going on,” Cote said.
The German students come in the fall for a couple of weeks and then go back home. In the early spring, the 15 South Burlington students will go and stay at their German partner’s home.
“You have that kind of situation where you reestablish how similar we are and what it doesn’t make sense to work together, and that you can build lasting friendships just through a very, very short amount of time,” said Lars Franke, a teacher from Germany.
Tim Kahn started the program 50 years ago in 1974. Though he’s now retired, he’s thrilled the program is continuing to educate and teach students to broaden their horizons.
“I said, we’ve got to have something combined with language, like an experience overseas, where kids develop the sense of what the people and how they live. So in essence, it has endured this long because it is a symbol of ways to wage peace, not war, but wage peace,” Kahn said.
The program is also hosting a reception Thursday evening for all those touched by the program over the years. It’s from 5 p.m.-9 p.m. at the Burlington Beer Company.