AYUSA Field Staff Win the Hearts of International Students

As AYUSA participants know, the AYUSA field staff are the heart and soul of our organization. They are women and men who are in the field, placing students with loving host families, and caring for our exchange students throughout their entire 10 month program year. Although every field staff person deserves recognition and praise, this month we are highlighting one very special field staff person: Jack Fontenot.

Jack Fontenot, an AYUSA field staffperson in Arizona has consistently proven his incredible dedication to AYUSA by being his kind hearted, energetic, and creative self.

Jack has worked as an AYUSA Cluster Leader, supporting our grant students for one year. He has also been hosting students on and off for over 30 years! He routinely plans elaborate trips for his students that highlight the unique and complicated history of the United States. He is so committed to hosting that he actually turned a bedroom in his home into a "dorm" style room that is perfect for hosting two students! Given the opportunity to talk about their feelings for Jack our AYUSA exchange students, regional director, and staff had plenty to say!

"When I first came I did not know anybody here and I did not have much information about lifestyle in the United States. But I had my placement organization and Cluster Leader who was ready to help me. He was a big support. He is doing many activities for us, trying to give us many experiences and knowledge. He took us many places where we could not go, he made parties for us to have fun and get to know each other better. He always goes to the activities we are doing and supports us, which is really important especially when you are in another country without your family. You feel like someone cares about you and is proud of you. It feels that we are a big family.

I will not be able to tell everything he has done and is doing for us. I really appreciate everything he is doing for us."

"I think it says a lot about Jack Fontenot that his last year student wanted to spend Christmas vacation with Coach. Coach has a dynamic personality with a love for his students. He goes above the call of duty to enrich the student's experience and encourages the students academically to reach for the stars. He is firm and charismatic but loving and caring. I know that many past students that have been under his care have continued to email and phone him with their life questions and advice from their Grandpa Coach. I personally have had a lot of experience this past year being the regional director and learning a vast amount of knowledge from Grandpa Coach. His wealth of knowledge of the world and students and people is invaluable. I don't know what I would have done without him for my first year serving AYUSA."

"I have met a lot of people in my life, some of them were nice, some not. But I didn't meet so many people like Coach, Jack Fontenot. This person actually cares about every student's problem like they are his own. We are all exchange students from different countries and we are all different personalities, but he always knows a special language, special word for each of us. I am really glad that I met coach. I think I got a lot of new knowledge from him and I got really lucky that this person became my community representative." "Coach is a person that I have known for only a few months but that is enough to know that he is a really good person. One thing that I know and felt is that he always says that he is my grandpa and he always worried about me and that he loves me and he is glad that I am here. This shows who he is and shows the beautiful soul that he has."