From America_Study Abroad Report on the life in Kansas_171218

We have the great pleasure to share the following new report regarding another 1 year exchange program in the United State.   Kotone Furukawa, a 10th grader of Otsuma Nakano High School, has been enjoying her staying in Kansas, America and studying at the local high school there.  She has been made an effort to be commited with volunteer works in the United States.   It would be wonderful if you readers could give us feedback of her report.  Her report is as follows:

Hi, my name is Kotone Furukawa. I have been staying in Kansas, United States for four months to study English and experience American culture here.  I experienced doing 3 volunteer works and I would like to talk about two of them that I experienced so far.

Firstly,  the third biggest holiday for Americans should be Halloween!!  I volunteered for helping kids to enjoy the Halloween night.  Some parents get worried to send their children out for trick or treat because sometimes there are people that kidnap children.  So, instead of going out to treat or treat,  they come to “Hallelujah Night”, which is the biggest event for our school.  Every year more than 600 kids come to Hallelujah Night and play games, enjoy free food and get some candies. I had really awesome time playing games with little kids and making kids smile.

Secondly, the next volunteer that I experienced was to serve food to the homeless people. In Wichita, Kansas, the place where I live, there are more than 500 homeless people. What I did was to serve free food to the homeless people at the park. There are some places where the State Official serves food for them, but they don’t get enough or they didn’t get food for few days long.

More than 60 people came to eat the food and I enjoyed talking with them about how they lived.  In particular, I got very interested in listening to what happened to them past times. I had a awesome time communicating with homeless people there, which made me feel good to be there for them.

Both volunteer works were really fun and I learned lots of things. Volunteer works are not just for helping people, but it makes my life richer and better to be there helping someone and making smile is the best thing for volunteers.  On the upcoming Christmas Eve, I am planning to volunteer for serving free food at the church for the people that don’t have money to celebrate Christmas. 

I have 6 months until I go back to Japan, so I would like to experience lots of volunteers.   I wish you in Japan to have happy holidays!!