A Shared Experience

A Shared Experience

“The experience changed my life,” Amy Nunamaker Gilli ’98, said about participating in the Oxford program between her junior and senior years at PC.

It was such an amazing experience for me because, as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by other cultures.

Nunamaker Gilli spent three weeks studying abroad in England. She took classes in art and literature at Oxford University.

“I wanted to soak up everything I could,” she said. “I would spend hours in museums trying to see everything, reading all the information I could about our stops along the way and just enjoying the experience.

“It was truly a treasured experience in my life.”

Nunamaker Gilli’s husband, Bertrand, had a similar experience, “but from the other side,” according to Amy.

“Bertrand is from France and, when we met, he had come to the U.S. to work as a chef and had always been intrigued by American culture,” Amy said.

Bertrand met an American couple when he was younger and traveling through Europe.

They became like family over the years,” Amy said. “Bertrand would travel to the U.S. to visit sometimes while on summer break from school.

Amy and Bertrand established the Nunamaker-Gilli Endowment for Experiential Learning in 2019. The scholarship provides financial support for students who may not have the opportunity to study abroad.

“Bertrand and I were both fortunate enough to have help from friends and family to visit the places we had dreamed of visiting,” Amy said.

Without that help, we likely neither would have seen nor experienced the different places, cultures, history and art that we have.

Amy says that she and her husband are grateful to their parents, grandparents and friends for allowing them to experience different parts of the world.

“We established the NunamakerGilli endowment not only in order to show our gratitude to our families for the experiences they gave us, but also to pass that experience along to others,” Amy said.

Amy Nunamaker Gilli ’98, with her husband, Bertrand, values the opportunity to experience the world through traveling abroad and aims to give the same opportunity to PC students.