The “thriving spirit to help” Christopher Reyes feels during a trip to the United States gives him “a sense of how we are all interconnected.”

Christopher Reyes is a passionate advocate for volunteerism in his home country, the Philippines. However, the “thriving spirit to help” he felt during a recent trip to the United States gave him “a sense of how we are all interconnected.”

“I learned how the American people are working hard through volunteerism to help solve community and society issues” such as homelessness, he says. “Regardless of the diversity of culture and traditions” in the United States, “there is really a strong sense of national pride.”

“America is a wonderful place to visit to understand diversity, experience openness, and to taste food that can range from the most exquisite to the most unique,” Reyes counsels other travelers. His favorite example of that diversity was San Francisco. “I fell in love,” he says. Reyes is pictured above at the abandoned prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay.

Reyes’s travels were sponsored by the Community Solutions Program, a professional exchange funded by the U.S. Department of State and implemented by IREX, a nonprofit organization originally known as the International Research and Exchanges Board.