Preparing Servas for Future Growth

by Lisa Gariépy Aiken

Prior to our departure, we personalized over one thousand donated world population maps with stickers promoting Servas, and I created and photocopied 500 little booklets about Servas which were folded by fellow Massachusetts Servas members at a dinner we hosted. These freebies and other promotional materials prepared months earlier were loaded into our minivan. On Saturday, November 15^th, eager to share Servas with the 5,000 members expected to attend this event, Tom and I set off for Louisiana.  

Along the way, we overnighted with generous Servas members. In Pennsylvania, our hosts Bill Magargal and Marie Spodek showed us their beautiful fiber art creations and gave us a tour of their vibrant retirement community. In North Carolina, Leena shared her Gujrati culture with wonderful meals and conversation. In Georgia, we laughed and chatted over a delicious Thai meal with Angela and Kevin Coffey. In Mississippi, we had great discussions about living in that area with Gail Barton who introduced us to her lovely pets.

Esther DeJong & Harley Winer, our New Orleans hosts, went above and beyond making our stay comfortable and easy while we were tabling at the convention. We are extremely grateful for all these wonderful people who hosted us along our journey.

As a retired foreign language teacher, I hadn’t been to an ACTFL convention in 38 years and wasn’t exactly certain what current teacher gatherings were all about. All I knew was that language teachers are my people and that I would be preaching to the choir if I could explain what Servas is in a short amount of time. This is no small feat if you know all that our organization does. We are not only a peace organization focusing on homestays and travel, Servas has many opportunities for its members, including participation at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women meetings, volunteering at Peace Schools around the world, and involvement with Servas artists, to name a few.

The convention attendees included traditional foreign language instructors of all levels, from preschool through adult learners, as well as administrators, consultants and teachers of English as a Second Language and American Sign Language. We came to recognize that the other 160 exhibit hall vendors of all types of products were also potential future Servas members.  

As we spoke with people during the three-day event, we learned more about our audience. Most people including vendors were from the United States; however, to our surprise, there were many attendees from four other continents. Perhaps Servas will also have an increase in membership in other member countries as a result of our efforts?  

We were astonished that not a single person out of the hundreds we spoke with had heard of Servas. Once they understood the concept of Servas, people were amazed that such an organization exists. They could see how a Servas membership could be useful in their own lives, those of their own children, and those of their students.

There was such enthusiasm that a few people came back to the table to let us know that they texted their young adult child about the SYLE (Servas Youth Language Experience) program and already heard back that their child intends to join. We hope our efforts at the convention will be fruitful to meet our goals of increasing membership.  

The convention ended yesterday, and we still needed time to digest the many conversations and takeaways. I plan to circle back in a future newsletter article with updates from this event.