Mission

AFS works toward a more just and peaceful world by providing international and intercultural learning experiences to individuals, families, schools, and communities through a global volunteer partnership.

AFS-GPS

The AFS-Greater Puget Sound Area Team (AFS-GPS) was formed in 1996-97, when AFS volunteers from throughout the Greater Puget Sound area met to create an alliance within our region. AFS-GPS represents a region extending from the islands of San Juan County, to the Pacific coast off Aberdeen to the Cascade Mountains of the east. It includes the major urban centers of Seattle and Tacoma as well as other prominent cities such as Bellingham, Olympia, Bellevue and Everett.

Every year AFS-GPS sends more students than we host, and in recent years have been in the top five largest Area Teams in the AFS-USA network.  It is thanks to the dedication of hundreds of registered volunteers and wonderful relationships with local public and private schools that allow AFS-GPS to maintain its success.

If you are interested in volunteering with us, please click here.

AFS-USA

The proud history of AFS (formerly the American Field Service) dates back more than 90 years, to 1914 in Paris when the American Ambulance Service was founded in conjunction with the American Hospital at Neuilly. Together they assisted in evacuating the wounded from the battlefront during World War I. In World War II, volunteer ambulance drivers again rescued the wounded and also helped to liberate concentration camp survivors at Bergen-Belsen.

After experiencing the devastation of two world wars, these young ambulance drivers, not much older than today’s AFS students, met to discuss what they could do to help stop the devastation of war from happening again. They believed, as we do today, that if people know and understand each other, it makes it a lot harder to fight one another. It was this way of thinking that formed the American Field Service (AFS), an organization dedicated to promoting peace and understanding through student intercultural exchange.

When AFS was founded in 1947, AFS awarded 52 scholarships to students in 11 countries. Today, we are proud to exchange more than 13,500 students annually worldwide, offer 145 programs in 50 countries and have the 2nd largest volunteer based organization in the world.