Hello, My name is Tristan Hamann, I am a junior in highschool and I am working toward a foreign exchange trip to Poland for my Senior year. I have wanted to explore the world for many years now and there is no better way at my age than through a highschool foreign exchange. What’s more, just last year I learnt from my grandmother that my family is, in fact, Polish. She entertained me with stories of my ancestors who crossed the Atlantic to America with only clothes on their back and my brave great great uncle who flew bomber planes in WWII. It would be amazing to go to the place where my roots start, to be in a place so entirely different from home, and to make friends with people so entirely different from me. I am sure I will remember it for the rest of my life.

Such a trip is only supported by three programs in America, FLEX-Abroad, ASF-USA and YFU-USA. I chose to go through YFU-USA because it is the cheapest paid for program, it isn’t obscenely hard to get into and has many scholarships available. I have been working since September of 2025 to learn Polish, get good grades and, of course, earn enough money; through sharpening knives, mowing lawns, recycling copper and being one of Newty's hardworking ice cream scoopers. The required amount is 15,000$ by June of 2027. I am hoping to earn scholarships to bring down that number and I have saved a good chunk of money (2,000$), but I am afraid that is only a fraction of what I need to make. I will continue to work in any way I can over the next year and every penny I earn will go towards this effort. I believe with the help of crowdfunding I could bridge that gap and meet my goal.