Dear German Teacher,
Your students are invited to participate in The Friendship Connection, a home-and-home visitation program between high schools in the United States and “Gymnasien” in Germany, primarily in Hessen. Our visitation program was developed in 1981 by high school teachers in Ohio and Germany. Our goal was to establish an “on going” and inexpensive alternative to the high priced national programs. In our last year of travel before the COVID pandemic, nearly 120 high schools in the U. S. participated in our exchange program. We look forward to building up our participating schools again this year!
During the unprecedented 2020 year, the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to suspend all student travel for three springs/summers. Therefore, we developed a NEW branch of our program: Virtual Friendship Connection! In this 2024-2025 school year we are offering our regular visitation program, but we are also very excited to continue to provide the “virtual” option (VFC) during the summer months so that students can keep up with their German! It is our hope that by connecting the students “virtually” we can continue to provide a “bridge” between our two countries and help inspire lasting, international friendships as well as encourage future travel between these VFC partners!
If you are interested in our visitation program this school year, please click this link to be added to our participation list and receive more information: FC Teacher Information Sheet
If you are interested in our Virtual Friendship Connection program, please click on this link to be added to our participation list and receive more information: VFC Teacher Information Sheet
If you are interested in offering BOTH programs in your school, please fill out BOTH forms. DANKE!
After reading the teacher section, please also review the student portion of this website for further information