by Vatsal Mehta, YES 2017-18, India, hosted with AFS in College Park, Maryland

Volunteering is one of the significant parts of our exchange program! Last month I and my exchange mates from Norway, Bangladesh, Turkey, Germany and Pakistan went to the Bloomingdale neighborhood block party to volunteer and to introduce people to YES and tell them why hosting matters!

When we arrived at the party we saw that people were setting up and we asked if we could help them with something. They were very happy to see us helping them! The party had music, food and fun games for kids. My exchange mates and I helped serve food and snow cones and as we served we also introduced people to YES and asked them if they were interested in hosting a student. After the event, the organizers sent a thank you note to our coordinator, mentioning how helpful we were. They also invited the AFS students to volunteer at the Bloomingdale block party next year!

I enjoyed this experience of volunteering for the first time very much. I can say this to be one of the most blissful experiences of my life. I believe when we help people with something we truly get inner happiness. I would to like thank our local AFS coordinators John MacGregor and Jaime Theilen for helping us be a part of the Bloomingdale block party and have such a wonderful experience.

Editor's note: Bloomingdale is a neighborhood in Washington, DC.