{"id":646397,"date":"2025-12-21T14:18:28","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T14:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/646397\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T14:18:28","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T14:18:28","slug":"special-usa-delivery-is-sent-to-pupils-at-greenock-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/646397\/","title":{"rendered":"Special USA delivery is sent to pupils at Greenock school"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n A group of S1 pupils were over the moon after receiving a box of USA treats from a family in Salt Lake City, Utah, who they befriended while on a cruise to Greenock<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\n Depute head Gordon Livingstone and teacher Larraine Thomson took the Developing a Young Workforce class on a tour of the Royal Princess Cruise Ship when it docked to open their eyes to opportunities on board.\n<\/p>\n

\n During the lunch they met IT specialist Austin Collier, his wife Kate, and their three children and talked to them about life in Greenock and exchanged stories.\n<\/p>\n

\n Inverclyde Academy pupils Arianna Duncan, and Emily Paul with gifts (Image: Duncan Bryceland)\n<\/p>\n

\n The Colliers were so moved by the Inverclyde<\/a> Academy pupils it started a chain of events.\n<\/p>\n

\n Mr Livingstone said: “The Royal Princess ended up having to stay in Greenock for an extra night because of a storm.\n<\/p>\n

\n “Instead of going on a tour they decided to get in touch with us at Inverclyde Academy and ask if they could come for a visit.\n<\/p>\n

\n “It was fantastic, the class loved talking to them. They kept in touch and Austin even dialled in to take part in a skills conference on work we had in the school.”\n<\/p>\n

\n Inverclyde Academy USA visit (Image: Duncan Bryceland)\n<\/p>\n

\n The Utah family – including son Kayden and twin daughters Scarlett and Savannah – then sent over a Christmas package full of goodies and mementos of life in the USA for the class. And it came with a special message.\n<\/p>\n

\n The box was packed full of sweets, books, personalised mementos, Christmas treats and a thank you card.\n<\/p>\n

\n Austin said: “We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Inverclyde Academy. We had a few travelling nightmares on the cruise and thought it was doomed to fail.\n<\/p>\n

\n “Then this chance encounter changed everything. Inverclyde Academy rolled out the red carpet for us and treated our family like gold.\n<\/p>\n

\n “Our teenage children were fascinated at the differences, and they would say that out of all the difference, they favoured Scotland’s way of doing things!”\n<\/p>\n

\n Inverclyde Academy USA visit (Image: Duncan Bryceland)\n<\/p>\n

\n The family also enjoyed an impromptu question and answer session, where they exchanged stories.\n<\/p>\n

\n He added: “The visit was rich, full of humour and fun, we learned a lot of things and even tried out one another’s accent.\n<\/p>\n

\n “At the end of our visit we were gifted the Scottish cup of friendship a Quaich and it brought tears to our eyes.\n<\/p>\n

\n “We felt so blessed to have had the opportunity to meet these wonderful people.\n<\/p>\n

\n “This visit was a simple gesture of kindness and our family felt so loved. It was the highlight of our holiday.”\n<\/p>\n

\n The box of goodies was a token of their appreciation.\n<\/p>\n

\n Mr Livingstone said: “The developing a young workforce class is aimed at showing our pupils from a young age the careers and jobs that are out there.\n<\/p>\n

\n “We went on to a cruise ship because there are so many opportunities for careers that young people would never think of.\n<\/p>\n

\n “We want to open up the tourism industry to them.”\n<\/p>\n

\n It particularly inspired Arianna Duncan, from Greenock, and friend Emily Paul from Inverkip, who both loved the cruise ship visit and meeting the family.\n<\/p>\n

\n Emily, who hopes to have a career in the performing arts, said: “It was a really lovey experience. We loved getting a look at the cruise ship.\n<\/p>\n

\n “We loved our box of goodies from the family as well.”\n<\/p>\n

\n Class mate Arianna added: “It was great finding out more about Salt Lake City.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of S1 pupils were over the moon after receiving a box of USA treats from a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-646397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115757993361687880","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}