50 Stories for 50 Years: Tura Cottingham, Host Family ’06

May 11, 2022

To celebrate our 50th anniversary year during 2018/19, we collected stories and profiles of people and institutions that have helped us build our organization, which first began as one person’s dream in 1968. We will feature one story per week on our blog. Please enjoy these “50 for 50” profiles featuring ASSIST’s dedicated board members, dynamic staff, welcoming host families and enthusiastic ASSIST Scholars.

Tura Cottingham
Host Family ’06

It was June 2006. Head of School Tom Doar and I were having our weekly meeting. At the end, he asked if I would consider hosting an ASSIST exchange student from Germany, and he handed me the resume of an outstanding young woman. At the time, our oldest son, Max, was studying German in high school, and was planning to spend a month with a family near Munich. Our youngest son, Clayton, was just getting ready to enter 5th grade.

I had been an exchange student in high school, and my family hosted several times. It was a remarkable experience that enriched not just the life of our family, but rippled out to aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and more. To this day, I am still in touch with my Mexican “sister” and family.

After talking it over with my husband John and our boys, we all agreed to welcome this girl from Wuppertal, Germany, to spend the first semester of the school year with us. And that is how Carolin Vogt and her family came into our lives.

Carolin was exceedingly happy, smart, mature, and curious—and remarkably proficient in English (her mother was an English teacher!). She had a younger brother and was quite comfortable now having two more. It wasn’t long after she moved in that we asked Carolin if she wanted to stay with us for the entire school year.

It’s very possible that year was one of my happiest ever. Having a third child—a daughter—added a whole new dimension to our family. Carolin helped out in the kitchen. She was a great “big sister” to Clayton, and even tutored him in German; Clayton even flew to Germany by himself the summer after Carolin left and spent a month with her family there! On a family vacation to Whistler, Canada, Max and Carolin were first in line when the ski lifts opened and were perfectly matched to tackle the slopes all day. Thanksgiving and Christmas included gatherings with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and our extended families.

As Carolin’s year came to an end, I remember waiting with her at the airport until the final second when she had to go through security. That’s when it really hit me. I loved Carolin like one of my own children.

And now here we are, 12 years later. While I don’t write as often as I should, I think about Carolin nearly every day, just like my boys. We have visited her family in Germany numerous times. We grieved with her at the loss of her mother, and then tragically again at the loss of her brother. And in November 2018, we celebrated with her at her wedding in Germany.

ASSIST is more than just an organization that “creates life-changing opportunities for outstanding international scholars to learn from and contribute to the finest American independent secondary schools.” The students they select are those with great potential, who are willing to take a leap, leaving their “real” families for a year to experience life from the perspective of an American family.

Thank you, ASSIST—and Carolin—for this life-changing experience.

About Tura:
Tura loves living and working with words, images, and design. Her career has spanned years in both the corporate communications world (in which she established her own communication and marketing business) and in the independent school world, which has been her favorite of the two. She has been working with North Shore Country Day School as Director of Marketing and Communications for the last 14 years, and she says it’s the best job she’s ever had. Tura works with and is inspired by both teachers and students, pursuing boldness and pushing the independent school marketing “rules” to serve her school and community.