This blog is two-fold. First, a brief announcement about some exciting news we received recently – we have been accepted into the Naperville Independent Film Festival! Naperville is a suburb outside of Chicago, so it is especially exciting for me to be able to go to a film festival that’s local enough to drive to and bring friends. Even more exciting is that we have been nominated for the Best Documentary award AND we were notified that there will representatives from a distribution company at the festival! We’re looking forward to attending in September.

I also wanted to share a message from CCI and Greenheart’s President, Emanuel Kuntzelman. CCI and Greenheart is an official sponsor of Opening Our Eyes; it is also the organization where I work. It is a cultural exchange organization that facilitates many different exchange programs, one of which brings high school students to the U.S. and places them with volunteer host families and high schools for the academic year.

We are currently in the home stretch of looking for host families willing to provide homes for the students arriving to start school this fall. Emanuel sent the message below to our field staff, which works to place these students with families and schools. However, I felt that his ultimate message about the power of the individual in changing lives really resonated with Opening Our Eyes’s message:

Steve Jobs once said that “People with passion can change the world for the better.” At CCI we have lots of passionate people ready to do just that.  In these final weeks of searching for host families, I would like to remind all of us why we are putting in the extra effort.

You are not just a sole person in your community, but an extraordinary member of an amazing team. You are a change maker, one of hundreds at CCI and Greenheart,  that are creating a world that will be more peaceful and understanding through your hard work. The phone calls and networking and extra hours of searching for host families add up to more than just meeting a goal; you are making a real difference in not only the life of an exchange student, but the lives of the host family, their friends, the family of the exchange student and the ripple effect goes on.  This is the expanding power of one.  One more placement by one more person adds up to many changed lives for years to come.

Thank you in advance for tapping into the power of one–your own, individual effort–to make this happen and help get all of our students placed.  When all of our students arrive later this summer, the most important number of all will still be “one”:  the one sense of accomplishment that each of us will have in knowing that we did our part to use our passion to change the world, one placement at a time.   

Here’s to all of you–the fantastic powers of one adding up to far more than the sum of individuals.  

With energy, gratitude, and best wishes for the weeks ahead,

Emanuel Kuntzelman, President

Center for Cultural Interchange and Greenheart

If you are interested in hosting an exchange student for this coming academic year, or you know someone who would be interested, please visit CCI’s website to learn more. You can also call the CCI office at 1-800-634-4771 if you have any questions.