Cassandra Mallard and Anna Hewett are two college freshmen who took a little bit of North Carolina abroad this summer all thanks to the Southern Pines Lions Club.

The two women, both recent graduates of Pinecrest High School, were sponsored by the local Lions as participants in the Lions Youth Exchange program. They spent a majority of their month abroad in Switzerland.

“It was one of the best experiences i’ve even had,” Mallard said. “I enjoyed spending time with my host family, seeing the sites and learning about the culture there.”

Others from the area have participated in the exchange program with the Lions but none have traveled to that particular part of the world.

“We had the experience of meeting the Lions in Switzerland and telling them about the U.S.,” Hewett said. “It was exciting and interesting all at the same time. The Lions organized club luncheons to welcome us and were very very accommodating.”

Hewett and Mallard agreed the Lions club abroad held the same beliefs and drive to serve as the local group.

Hewett, now attending the North Carolina School for the Arts in Winston-Salem and Mallard, who is a the University of North Carolina Greensboro, found out about the exchange program from their French instructor at Pinecrest, “Madame” Evelyn Freeman.

“She encouraged us to apply and once we were abroad I really understood how much I learned from her in AP French,” Mallard says.

Both students were impressed with the cities they visited and found their host families to be very friendly and fun. They spoke to the Lions at a recent monthly meeting to tell the story of their trip. The talk they gave also served as a practice run for their upcoming presentation for the Lions at the club’s district convention.

“It’s so important to realize that we’re all people and all essentially the same,” Hewett said in her presentation. “At the camp where we met a lot of exchange participants, it was easy to forget we were all from different places. We all got along so well and just went with it.”

Hewett’s parents are Judy and Phil Hewett of Southern Pines.

Mallard is the daughter of Maria and Mike Mallard and is the granddaughter of George and Cecile Mallard of Pinebluff.

The two students also shared their scrapbooks and favorite photos from the trip.

Hewett says she and her parents kept in constant contact via e-mail during her stay.

“We left for Canada the day after she left for Switzerland and when we checked our e-mail at the hotel, she had written to check in and then, since we knew everything worked, we just kept it up,” Judy Hewett told the Lions group following her daughter’s presentation. “Technology is amazing.”

Overall the students logged 33 cities in 17 different countries during their stay.

“We saw everything from yodlers to cheesemaking to soccer all over the place,” Hewett said. “In the Alps it was like being above the clouds.”

Mallard agrees the trip had something different all the time.

“The landscapes were beautiful,” she said. “I’m very grateful I got see and do all those things.”