More than 400 Baton Rouge community members volunteer each year to be ‘host’ families for University international students.
The families are a part of Friendship Families, an International Hospitality Foundation program started in 1960 to help acclimate international students to American life.
Although several organizations exist on campus for this purpose, the IHF founded the program so that members of the Baton Rouge community could participate in the process.
“It’s strictly about inter-cultural understanding,” said IHF Executive Director Virginia Grenier. “Baton Rougeans are fairly cosmopolitan. Members of the community have lived abroad.”
The students do not live with the families, but they meet informally to visit, share meals or go shopping, Grenier said.
Henry Bradsher, an Associated Press foreign correspondent who has lived abroad for 16 years and traveled extensively, said he enjoyed hospitality in other countries, so it was logical to get involved with the IHF’s program.
“The whole point is to give them a place to talk, make them feel at home,” Bradsher said. “You want them to go home with a good impression of the United States.”
About 12 to 15 percent of LSU’s 1,700 international students participate, a high rate compared to other universities, Grenier said.
Human ecology graduate student Olena Nesteruk from the Ukraine, said she has enjoyed being “hosted.”
“It’s helpful if you have a family to help you out if you need something, especially during the holidays, and you are lonely,” Nesteruk said.
Local attorney Richard Williams, who participated in foreign exchange programs in Europe and Australia, said there is no set program.
He said he usually gets together with the international student and goes to Wal-Mart to get what the student needs. After that, he meets with the student approximately once a month for dinner or an activity.
For example, the international student he is hosting this year had never been fishing, so they went fishing one weekend.
“I know how much I appreciated people hosting me when I was over there, so I am just returning the favor,” Williams said. “Having been an exchange student three times, I know what it’s like to be abroad. I remember the things I appreciated.”
At the beginning of each semester, Grenier explains the program to international students at the International Services Office orientation. Interested students fill out a form that enables Grenier to match their profile with a family’s interests.
Williams said he benefits from learning about different cultures and how the American way of life is different.
For members of the community, Grenier said it’s a way to participate in “armchair travel,” knowing someone from another country.
“It’s the frontier mentality,” Grenier said. “We were raised to do volunteer work.”