PTPI Blog

Isaac and Serge traveled from Beirut to attend PTPI’s 2009 America’s Regional Meeting in Las Vegas on September 3-5.  Before the conference, they traveled throughout California on a PTPI Homestay Excursion, visiting a few of PTPI’s Chapters in the state.

Issac and Serge Fahad pose with Amb. Charles and Chin Yeh Hostler. Amb. Hostler, former U.S. Ambassador to Bahrain, lived for a total of nine years in Lebanon and considers it his favorite country (out of the 160 he has visited).

1. Thank you for coming all this way to represent your chapter, PTPI’s Beirut, Lebanon Chapter at the 2009 Americas Regional Meeting.  How are you enjoying yourselves?

Serge: Las Vegas is very beautiful.  It’s great to see because it’s a famous city – the city that never sleeps.

Isaac: We haven’t seen much of Las Vegas yet.  We plan to though.  We’ve been very busy so far.  We are enjoying ourselves very much.

2. What is the latest humanitarian project your chapter worked on in Beirut?

Isaac: We did a project for Global Youth Service Day (GYSD).  We went to a home for elderly persons and spent the whole day with them.  We served breakfast through dinner and brought them gifts.  Every chapter member was touched by this experience because they needed such care.  The seniors at the center told us that they felt as if their grandchildren were next to them and they had tears in their eyes.

3. Jill Helsel told us that you were really looking forward to meeting other members of our PTPI family.  Has it been a good experience so far?  What have you enjoyed the most?

Serge: Everyone is so nice.  It is such a fantastic experience to meet everyone.

4.  Jill also shared your homestay schedule–Hollywood, Universal Studios, Old Town Sacramento, the California State Fair, San Francisco, wine tasting (to name a few) and a full week with some of our wonderful members in California—sounds like it must have been a fantastic week!  Tell us about it.

Serge: Yes, we came to participate in the 2009 homestay excursion. We’ve been to LA (Los Angeles) and were hosted by a very nice family there and had a great time with them.  It was a wonderful cultural exchange and then we moved to Stockton (California). In Stockton we were also hosted by a very lovely family; we had a very good time and then went to San Francisco and spent lots of time there with our host family having breakfasts, lunches, dinners and exchanging conversation about Lebanon and the United States.

5.  Isaac, you serve as your chapter’s Public Relations Officer and I understand that you work in marketing in Beirut.  You must be a natural!  Do you have any advice for fellow PTPI Public Relations Officers?

Isaac: Absolutely.  I would say that it’s important to approach the media and build connections on all levels.  Any time you can, promote your chapter and represent yourself as PTPI.  You never know where this will lead you, so be sure to network and exchange business cards, emails and meet people.  In Lebanon, due to my job I meet many people and I am always looking to introduce them to People to People International.  So many people don’t know about the organization here so we want to change that and help the chapter and PTPI grow.

Tags: Americas Regional Meeting, Homestay, Travel

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 at 6:30 pm and is filed under 5 Minutes With.... You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.