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For over 52 years Up with People participants have been traveling around the globe fulfilling our mission.

Through music and action, we empower young people to be positive agents of change for a more hopeful, trusting and peaceful world.

The people our participants travel with and meet while on the road can quickly become lifelong friends. We recently received an email from Jed Daly who traveled with Up with People 47 years ago. Jed recently received an unexpected message from a host family he stayed with while traveling abroad during his Up with People tour. Translated it reads:

Hi Jed,

Surely you will be asked: who is this gentleman who writes to me and what does it have to do with me and with “Up with People” ?. I’ll tell you right away. I am Elia Carlo Cigna and I contact you from Palermo – Sicily – Italy where you came back in 1972 with the band “Viva la Gente”. My family has had the pleasure of hosting you in the days of your stay for the musical show held by your group in my city. You slept in my room and I remember we even played something together with our guitars !!! In rearranging the drawers of my parents’ desk, which unfortunately are no longer there today, I found the pictures of us together, one with me and one with my parents and sisters, and some cards of that time with your signature. I thought you might like to remember those moments that my sisters and I always remember with great pleasure. So, after tracing your email address, I thought of sending them together with a photo of me today. We were boys, today we have changed and we have white hair but the memory of a beautiful period of our life keeps us young. I remember you with great affection.

A hug.

Elia Carlo

P.S. If you return to these parts contact me, I will be happy to see you again.

Jed told Up with People “…see pictures that my host kept for 47 years!!! What we did (and do) sticks with people.”