Local host families needed for foreign students

The Daily Inter Lake

World Experience, an accredited high school exchange program, is looking for families to host foreign students during the 2009-10 school year.

Scores of applicants from countries all over the world are eager to attend school in the Flathead Valley and lack only families to take them in for the year. Host families "adopt" foreign students for the school year and treat them as members of the family.

Some potential hosts have expressed concern about the cost of caring for foreign students throughout the school year. But students have their own insurance and spending money.

According to John and Kelly Swenson, who have hosted students and been involved with World Experience for nearly 20 years, all foreign students need is a bed, a place to study "and lots of love and encouragement."

Foreign students aren't guests, Kelly Swenson said. They are encouraged to be fully integrated into their host families' lives, including sharing chores and participating in family activities.

The students, Swenson said, "have often spent years preparing for this experience and saving money to be able to come, looking forward to it with great anticipation, and it is my goal to help them find just the right family."

Swenson, a volunteer coordinator for World Experience, has matched students with families across Northwest Montana since 1991. All it takes to get started, she said, is a phone call and about an hour to go through the list of applicants.

Some local schools will accept applications from foreign students through June. At Flathead and Glacier high schools, the deadline is May 15.

For additional information, call Swenson at 844-3154 or 250-7982. More information is available at www.worldexperience.org.