Upland Overseas, the Upland-Finnish Exchange Program, began in 1977 to provide students with a first-hand international perspective using student exchange and foreign travel with an athletic focus as a vehicle for sharing friendship even when language might be a barrier. It is a unique program that connects two cultures and builds an ever-growing family.

The program has two components. First, each year Upland welcomes at least one boy and one girl from the area around Turku, Finland to spend the year as members of our 9th grade class. These students generally come to us from the TPS Ice Hockey Club and Lahjan Tytöt, an aesthetic gymnastics club, and live with Upland families for the duration of the year. The students quickly become members of their host families as well as members of the larger Upland family.

In addition, each March Upland’s 8th and 9th grade students (boys one year, girls the next, and so on) travel to Finland for 10-14 days to learn about the history and culture and to play ice hockey and volleyball with Finnish teams. The highlight of the trip is the annual visit to Turku where students stay with host families and visit with alumni. The town of Turku opens its arms to our travelers and immediately our students feel as if they have found a home in a country that they thought would be foreign to them. Every three to five years, the Upland community welcomes teams from TPS and Lahjan Tytöt for a cultural exchange on this side of the Atlantic. This is always a much-anticipated chance for Upland’s American and Finnish alums to reconnect and reminisce as well as to make new friends.