Dominion’s Global Ambassadors, along with the Ambassadors from Park View, Potomac Falls, and Freedom High School, have started planning the International Summit of 2014. Unlike last year’s, this year’s Summit includes multiple high schools around Loudoun County who thought the Summit was a great opportunity.

“It’s the Loudoun County International Summit, so it is a lot bigger than it has been in the past, which is exciting,” said Maggie Low, Global Ambassadors president.

“Bigger” not only accounts for the addition of more Loudoun County schools, but this year, up to 14 countries will be represented at the Summit, as opposed to the 7 countries last year. Dominion is hosting eight countries: six that were hosted last year, which are South Korea, Lebanon, China, Singapore, South Africa, and Germany, plus Mexico and France that were added to the list. “We wanted to reach out to countries that speak the languages taught at Dominion,” said Rodgers, sponsor of Dominion’s Global Ambassadors.

Lindsay Cook, Summit chair, likes the expansion of the summit, explaining that “we branched out to other countries in order to form relationships and continue to grow the Summit.”

The remaining six countries are split between Potomac Falls, Freedom, and Park View. Even though this year’s Summit is technically the first Loudoun County Summit, Park View hosted one school last year (Costa Rica). After last year’s success with multiple hosts, Loudoun County made the International Summit available to any school within the county.

Because of the expansion in the number of host schools and the number of schools being hosted, Global Ambassadors had already started planning in May of the 2012-2013 school year, right after the second annual Dominion International Summit.

In addition to “Work Days” held on Saturdays, Global Ambassador members attend meetings every Thursday morning from 8:15-8:45 A.M., in which members discuss and plan the various activities and theme for the summit.

This year’s theme is “Explore the past, seize the present, shape the future,” allowing students from around the world to discuss global issues such as differing politics and education. “This summit is interesting because all over the world, there are teens who are similar but may have different views,” Cook said.

Global Ambassadors already have many events planned. Both students from Loudoun County high schools and International students can partake in the Glow Dance, a popular event from last year’s Summit, Dance clinics given by Dominion dance teams, and Science and Technology Day, where students will travel to the Air and Space Museum.

There is also a day in which Summit students and students who attend Loudoun County schools travel to Washington D.C. and go to different museums.

The biggest emphasis of this year’s Summit, however, is the Service Day, which is new this year. Students can get together and work on different service projects, such as Habitat for Humanity.

Because of the growth of the Summit, there are more funding issues. Last year, Dominion won the Pepsi Grant, giving the school $10,000, which helped pay for much of the Summit’s expenses. Because this year’s Summit links multiple Loudoun County schools, it would be beneficial for different companies and schools to become involved and help fund the Summit, possibly by catering food for different events.

This year’s Loudoun County International Summit is expected to be a huge success with more of the county involved. “We want to continue the tradition of the International Summit,” Rodgers said. Expanding the connection between ambassadors around the world is a great occasion that Dominion can say it started.