11/3/2009 - Yucaipa student on AFS exchange in Belgium
Staff Writer for the Redlands Daily Facts
With the help of a Redlands/Yucaipa AFS scholarship, Yucaipa High School student MacKenzie Stickney is spending the school year in Belgium, learning French and living with a Belgian family
Learning about French cooking in the French-speaking part of Belgium, eating Belgian waffles, learning about Belgian lace and learning the real history of French fries are on the agenda for MacKenzie Stickney.
MacKenzie is a Yucaipa High School student who is spending the school year in Belgium as an AFS exchange student, with help from a Redlands/Yucaipa AFS scholarship.
MacKenzie, 16, is the youngest daughter of Walter and Laura Stickney of Calimesa. She left California in August for 10 months in Belgium on the AFS home-stay program.
After taking two years of Spanish at Yucaipa High School, she is learning French in Belgium and hopes to become trilingual.
She lives in Arlon, Belgium, near Luxembourg and France, and attends a French-speaking high school.
Her host father and mother speak Italian, French and English. In her host family, she has two sisters, ages 16 and 19, who also speak three languages.
MacKenzie’s mother, Laura Stickney, is an art teacher at Park View Middle School in Yucaipa. She learned French when she was a high school AFS exchange student to France.
MacKenzie hopes to have experiences like those her mother had, and she hopes to visit other places in Europe and learn about the culture, architecture and literature.
MacKenzie was awarded a scholarship for her exchange program by the Redlands/Yucaipa AFS Board Scholarship Committee consisting of local AFS volunteers Richard Blakley and Paul Hodson.
The AFS Board awards scholarship help in the Redlands-Yucaipa area to students who demonstrate openness to other people and cultures, the desire to be an ambassador of American culture, and a willingness to participate in a local AFS chapter upon their return.
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