Imagine yourself as a 15 year old Rotary Youth Exchange student from Korea on your way to meet your host family in O'Fallon, Illinois. Your coast to coast flight lands in the DFW Airport as expected but late. Then you find out through your limited English skills that you missed your connecting flight to St. Louis.
That is exactly what happened this past Thursday at 8:42 PM in the evening (August 11th) to Kim Yung Piip who goes by the nick name Fredrick. Fredric called his host family, Kim Sabella, from O'Fallen Rotary Club in Southern, Illinois. The quick thinking Kim managed to get Fredrick to quickly get back to the American Airlines gate to put his luggage on the next flight out in morning. Her next task was to find someone near the airport that could provide a place to sleep for the night. This was a task she did not take lightly, this 15 year old was entrusted to her care and now she was tasked with finding someone that she did not know a completely different city to care Fredric for the evening and get him back to the airport in the morning.
She knew she could trust a fellow Rotarian so she started with club finder on Rotary.org. Using the tool she looked for Rotary Clubs near DFW. Fortunately, she knew enough about our geography to know that Grapevine is very close to the airport and she started sending emails to the club leaders on their club websites. Without phone numbers to contact people, she had to resort to sending emails to all the local clubs in the hopes catching someone that might be checking their emails at 8:30 PM at night. She sent the following message; "Hey Rotarians in N. Texas!! Our inbound Youth Exchange Student is stranded in DFW. Frustratingly, no one responded. Ever resourceful, Kim began searching the Facebook Pages of the Rotary clubs around DFW airport and looked for the names of the Rotarians that posted to their clubs websites. She Facebook messengered these fellow Rotarians in the hopes of catching someone that would be checking their messenger chats.
Fortunately, Cas Findlay of the Grapevine Rotary Club happened to be on her computer at home and saw the message. Cas quickly called Kim in OFallen inquiring how she could help. After Kim explained the need, Cas told her that she would be glad to help. But, where in DFW was he? Kim knew he was in terminal D, but which of the 28 gates at terminal D was he located? With his limited English skills, he was not able to tell therm. Both women, ever resourceful, managed to get Fredric to take photos of his surrounding.
With the image of the sign on the other side of this window, Cas was able to figure out the gate where she would to find Fredick.
Fellow Rotarian Cas Findlay was able to take him to their home for the evening. As with any 15 year old he was hungry, so a stop at the nearest hamburger restaurant was in order.
The following morning, Cas' brother went out for donuts for breakfast before taking him back to the airport.
All is well that ends well and Fredric was picked up by the Sabella Family at the St. Louis Airport at 1:30 PM Friday morning.
Kim Yung Piip, known as Fredrick is a Rotary Youth Exchange student from a small town near Seoul, Korea. He will be with his host family for the next 10 months attending the local high school in O'Fallen, Ill. We wish him the best of luck and a most rewarding Rotary Youth Exchange experience.
Thank you Cas Findley of the Rotary Club of Grapevine for loving service.
#serviceaboveself
#imaginerotary