During a semester abroad, some days can feel more “foreign” than others.

For students at Syracuse University Abroad’s centers and programs in Florence, London, Madrid, Santiago, Strasbourg and Wrocław, Thanksgiving is one of those days.

At a time of year when friends on campus have the week off from classes and are preparing to celebrate the holiday, the lack of a celebration abroad can feel jarring. This year, staff, students, faculty and partners are finding meaningful ways to beat the “holiday blues” through a variety of volunteering and community connections.

Service and Celebration

Students in Madrid were involved in a series of community outreach days throughout October, followed by participation in November’s national anti-hunger donation drive led by the Spanish Food Bank. Over the past several weeks, they have supported an animal shelter, a nursing home, and a tactile disability-friendly museum. The visits have run concurrently with a service-learning project at Madrid’s Official School of Languages.

The Madrid Center has aligned their program’s farewell party with Thursday’s holiday, and will be hosting a Spanish take on the Thanksgiving meal. The intercultural spirit of the event has been visually captured by biology major Simona Milev ’28, whose design combining iconic elements of the city such as flamenco dancers, chocolate con churros, the Oso y el Madroño and the Retiro boat rides, won this year’s center-wide postcard contest.

The day after Madrid’s farewell Día de Acción de Gracias meal, students in the Santiago program will say adiós to Chile with a visit to SkyCostanera, the observatory of the tallest skyscraper in South America which offers a nearly 1000-foot panoramic view of the capital’s modern architecture nestled in the Andes mountains. Following their visit, they will gather for a “friendsgiving” meal with program director Mauricio Paredes and students from another study abroad program.

For journalism and history student Duncan Green ’27, studying in Santiago, the week’s farewells are especially poignant, as they include wrapping up his time at the Fundación de Protección de la Infancia Dañada por Estados de Emergencia (PIDEE), a local nongovernmental organization devoted to protecting human rights for children and youth.

PIDEE was created in 1979 to support young people affected by the atrocities of the Pinochet dictatorship, and continues to promote well-being for underprivileged families. Green has been blending his two majors in a special project digitizing the organization’s archives so they can be more accessible to the public as a resource for young people’s contemporary history.

Making Connections Across Europe

Mason Burley ’27, currently studying in Poland in the Exploring Central Europe program, took advantage of home campus’s week off to make plans with a friend. Elena Cooper ’25, herself an alumna of Syracuse Abroad’s London program, met Burley in London, where they participated in the London Center’s trip to the Natural History Museum and Science Museum as part of the learning community on environment, sustainability and policy. Cooper and Burley are spending Thanksgiving in Poland while the London learning community spends Thanksgiving afternoon volunteering at their local community garden.

While in Poland, Burley is interning at the Archaeological Museum of Wroclaw. “This semester, I am assisting with the preparations for an upcoming temporary exhibition on food and eating in medieval Lower Silesia, the region Wroclaw is the capital of,” says Burley. He wants to apply his experience to a future career, noting, “I am helping with the selection of background images and with streamlining English translations of the Polish texts for the exhibition.”

This year while abroad, through volunteering, interning,and taking part in the local culture, students find new ways to feel grateful and at home.

Story by Becca Farnum