Over the past few months alumni around the country have been working hard to recruit and prepare American students for their overseas experiences. To remind us all of what these efforts are all about, this month we've included a couple of stories from the Alumni Corner.

Also in this issue, be sure to read about the multi-year grant that the National Alumni Council (NAC) has received. In future issues you will read about some of the new projects that this grant has made possible.

When Life Gives You Brownie Mix, Make Brownies

I peered doubtfully at my calculations: 0.1325 liters of vegetable oil? Assuming, of course, the label of the perfume bottle I had smuggled out of the bathroom was accurate (it promised seventy-five milliliters equals two-and-a-half fluid ounces), my half cup should be about 133 milliliters. Measuring liquids wasn't the only thing giving me grief. Thirty three centimeters to the foot? Or was it thirty two? I needn't have worried. My German host family didn't have any thirteen-by-nine-inch pans.

I'll admit: My baking operation did look a bit strange. Two calculators, a worse-for-the-wear sheet of paper, both sides covered with scrawled numbers and scribbled formulas, a plastic ruler decked out with dinosaurs picturesquely devouring one another, a battered box of brownie mix and a California blonde, me, feeling slightly beaten, were the main ingredients. My sympathetic host mom, Evelyn, tried to help. She read the instructions and set out a coffee mug, asking if it was the same size as American cups, and was there enough "plant" oil to fill it half-way? I asked her to please set the oven to 176.66666 degrees Celsius (did I use the right equation to convert the instructions from Fahrenheit?), and as she turned, chuckling, to do so, I quickly slipped the mug back into the cupboard. What to do? Evelyn, still smiling, wished me luck and disappeared into the cellar to iron the mountain of clothes generated by a family of five, while I searched for a measuring cup and the oven warmed up.

My thoughts didn't stay on my task long (though I did finally find a pan that was big enough); they drifted and settled on how I had gotten myself into this in the first place: making brownies.

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The NAC is pleased to announce that it has received a significant multi-year grant for the implementation of its "Universal Post Program Reconnection" effort. These funds will be used to build on the last three years of the NAC's work towards creating a YFU-USA Alumni Association which encourages active and meaningful alumni participation in order to grow the YFU family and further YFU's mission. More specifically, the project, managed in cooperation with YFU-USA, will:

• Facilitate the reconnection of US alumni with their home culture, friends, natural families, society and with YFU-USA;
• Provide homecoming orientations (reconnection reunions) for all USA alumni, not just recently returned students;
• Provide post program support in person, by mail, by phone, through online chats, or by email;
• Provide opportunities for these reconnected individuals to become integrated as active YFU volunteers;
• Expand YFU-USA's capacity to host International Students and expand resources for recruiting and supporting American Overseas students; and
• Provide a full-time Alumni Specialist to work out of the International Center in Washington, D.C. to help facilitate this project.