Lee’s Summit students help KC welcome international World Cup guests with apps

As excitement builds for this summer’s World Cup, a group of Lee’s Summit students made it their goal to help international visitors to the FIFA games feel welcome and safe in the metro area.

Kansas City will host six games June 16 through July 11 with close to 650,000 visitors from throughout the world projected. At least several dozen of these guests are members of Rotary International in their own countries and will be hosted by Kansas City-area Rotarians.

Students at Lee’s Summit R-7’s Summit Technology Academy (STA) tackled the challenge of building two user-friendly apps, each designed to create a more welcoming and comfortable environment for the international guests.

Throughout the development process, the school’s two International Studies Academy classes worked with students STA programs of business, finance and data analytics; digital media technology; hospitality, tourism and recreation management; and software development.

An app known as Host Ready was spearheaded by students in the morning program who worked closely with the two Lee’s Summit Rotary Clubs. The second app, called Beyond the Match and managed by afternoon students, assists hospitality employees. For this app, students collaborated with the Hotel and Lodging Association of Greater Kansas City and local businesses.

“In this time especially, I feel like there’s a lot of misconceptions about people from different cultures, and it will be really nice for people to feel welcome and understood when they come here,” said Grace Nurnberg, a senior in the international studies program and project manager for the Host Ready app.

The Beyond the Match app for hospitality workers provides instant information to help them better serve guests at restaurants, lodging and other locations, said Curtis Cook, instructor for the International Studies Academy.

“It’s really important that you know the international visitors’ background,” said Jillian Coonce, a junior at STA, “so when they come to Kansas City they’re not totally in shock. Culture shock is one of the main reasons we wanted to make this app.”

The Host Ready app includes practical information on topics such as food, religion, general background, sleeping and meal schedules.

“Do they pray, what are their prayer routines if they have one?” Coonce added. “We want those guests to feel safe and welcome.”

Nearly 40 students from the five different programs at STA began working on the project in December with the apps launching in May. Coordinating the work from each class has been interesting, Nurnberg said.

“I’ve learned a lot because I’ve done big projects in the past, but none of them have been with students from other classes,” she added, “so I’ve had to learn what they need to do to learn and how they work.”

Summit Technology Academy’s international studies students have worked with nonprofits and other organizations for a number of years on international projects such as creating culture maps. The students are also involved in the Interact Club, Rotary’s service organization for young people, which has around 20 years working alongside Rotary on international business and project management.

Ben Martin, chair of the Rotary Friendship Exchange for District 60401, has been coordinating with Rotarians planning to visit the Kansas City area for the World Cup. There are around 20 hosts throughout the metro area including several in Lee’s Summit.

Martin recently visited Summit Technology Academy to meet with students about the app. The students are also presenting their apps to area Rotary Clubs.

“This will give us a sense of what to expect from the incoming visitors in terms of what’s acceptable in their culture, what their expectations are in their culture,” he said, “such as, ‘gosh they eat dinner at different times than we do.’”

A retired Lee’s Summit School District teacher and mentor at STA, Martin added that the idea of a bigger world out there is important to instill in students.

“It’s a really good program in terms of Summit Technology Academy,” he said. “It allows the students to use the technology that is so prevalent in this building to make international connections and international outreach. Here we are in the middle of the United States where we go 1,000 miles in any direction and we just meet other Americans.”

Cook said he is proud of the students and the work they’ve done on the apps.

“The International Studies Academy is a 100-percent project-driven experience,” Cook added. “Very little is teacher led. I’m very much a facilitator.”

Initially, Cook said the apps will be used by several hundred people with the potential to help many more in the future.

“I think it’s really cool that all these high schoolers are coming together to make a real-life app that will be in the app store and the Google Play store,” Coonce said. “It’s not a mockup or a work assignment or just something that sounds like a cool idea but you never really integrate it into real life. I’m glad to be a part of it.”

The project has been both a learning experience and a significant accomplishment for all of the students, said Nick Williams, a junior in the International Studies Academy and member of the apps’ marketing team.

“What most people may not 100-percent realize is that the students at Summit Technology Academy completely created this app themselves,” Williams said. “While we did have the guidance of teachers and professionals when needed, the app and all the workaround it was set up completely by juniors and seniors at STA.”

This story was originally published May 7, 2026 at 5:56 AM.