Elizabeth Eickholt won’t be taking the summer off from school.

The fifth-grader at Bucyrus Middle School is taking part in the People to People Student Ambassador Program.

“I’m going to learn so many things and see so many places that I may not have gotten to otherwise,” she said. “I think you have to be nominated by someone,” said the A-B honor roll student.

Eickholt will leave for her trip to England and Ireland on June 18 and return on July 1.

“I will miss my family some, but I can’t wait to see things like the places where the Harry Potter movies were filmed and all the beautiful buildings and other places we will visit,” Eickholt said.

She will be part of a group of 40 people, including other students and adult chaperones.

“Our meetings that we attend now for students and their parents are held in Findlay. This program was founded by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956. We were skeptical

when we first received the things in the mail. We had a relative who works in Washington D.C., check it out thoroughly to make sure everything was on the up and up. Since then, her dad and I have relaxed some. The program is very well organized and everyone involved with it has been thoroughly checked out,” her mother, Leslie, said.

“I lived in Germany for a while, so I’m not as worried as her mother is,” father Thad said.

President Eisenhower founded the program on the belief that peaceful relations between nations require mutual respect between individuals which means if children are exposed to other cultures, they will be more accepting of diversity.

As part of the program, Elizabeth is required to begin keeping a journal now of her experiences with the program, trip and preparation to share with others later on.

“It really helped me to read some of the students’ journals from last year. It answered a lot of my questions and showed me that it will be so much fun,” Eickholt said as she began to leaf through all of the paperwork required for the trip.

Paperwork and a passport are not the only things needed for the trip. The Eickholts are working hard to raise the $5,000 needed to go on the adventure.

“We have sent out letters and received donations from family members, the Pelican House, Ken Whitt, and our church, First Baptist. We are planning a car wash, bake sale and may sell candles. Our main project, though, is a “Family Favorites Cookbook” that we have put together and is almost ready to go to print. We will be selling the cookbook for $10 a piece,” Leslie said.

The book will have more than 100 recipes and will be ready in the next few weeks.

Anyone wishing to donate or buy a cookbook can call 419-563-0784.

krlewis@nncogannett.com

419-563-9226

This entry was posted by Taman Siswa on Monday, February 20, 2006 at 12:39 am and is filed under Education News, Study Abroad. Tags: Bucyrus Middle School, car wash, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Elizabeth Eickholt, Germany, Ireland, Ken Whitt, Leslie, Student, Study, Study Abroad, United Kingdom, Washington D.C., . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.