Topeka High’s American Field Service(AFS) club helps foreign exchange students with their transition to life in America as well as provide them with a network of friends. The club has been having trouble with participation in recent years but club officers have been working to change that.

“I feel like people think they don’t have the time [for the club] but they don’t know what the club does, or what it’s about so they don’t know what they’re missing,” Gabi Hunter, club president said.

The club is involved in a wide range of activities and volunteer opportunities for exchange students and club members. Students volunteer at places such as Harvesters, a regional food bank that assists numerous nonprofit organization in effort to end hunger. AFS also does fun things like attend the annual renaissance festival.The club is a mixture of exchange students and U.S. students that meets every Wednesday after school from three to four, and occasionally outside of school. Club officers get together on a weekly basis to plan fun activities for the meetings.

“I think we could plan more exciting activities for the club and encourage members to attend face to face instead of just over announcements,” Chloe Phillippe, club treasurer, said.

Club officers noticed a change in participation this year perhaps due to a change in management, all of last year’s officers were seniors and have graduated. Participation was high at the beginning of the year but slowly declined as other activities such as sports began. In an effort to increase club interest officers met Wednesday afternoon to brainstorm ideas. One of these ideas being to increase the clubs social media activity, in order to do this officers are creating social media sites for the club including snapchat, regularly updating the clubs facebook and multiple twitter hashtags. Officers are calling this change #SAVEAFSCLUB.

“We will be sending out more information to people who signed up at the beginning of the school year and just try to make people more informed,” Hunter said.