Have your kids left the house and now you find yourself in an empty home? It’s the perfect time to consider hosting an exchange student! Regardless of whether you’re accustomed to hosting or it’s a new venture, opening your doors to an exchange student is a wonderfully enriching experience. Today, we had the pleasure of interviewing Patty and Bill from Kansas, who are currently hosting their 24th student. They welcomed their first student in 1997. 27 years later, they continue to create beautiful memories with each of their exchange daughters!
My wife, Patty, and I are both 76 years old with two adult boys. Over the past 27 years, we have hosted 24 exchange students and are already in touch with our 25th student who will be staying with us during the upcoming 24/25 school year. We started hosting after our sons moved out in 1997. Our first experience wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad either. The next year we decided to give it another try and hosted Cecile, a 17-year-old girl from France who had just graduated from high school before coming to the US. Cecile was one of the best experiences of our life! She was mature, funny, somewhat carefree and a burst of sunshine. We have been to France several times to visit her, and her mother did some research for me on my French ancestors.
We love hosting because we love children and having a teenager in the house keeps us feeling young and involved in the school and community. The parents of the girls we host are the age of our boys so we are serving more of a role as grandparents rather than parents. We enjoy attending high school activities such as plays, music programs and sports events rather than sitting at home with nothing to do.
Our advice to empty nesters thinking about hosting: Please don’t be afraid to host a student! Almost all our girls have said that they enjoy being the only child, especially those who come from larger families. They enjoy the attention. They do not need to be entertained every minute. We always choose a student with a hobby, such as reading, playing the piano, etc so that they can entertain themselves until they start meeting people at school. For our students, it’s an absolute MUST that they participate in a fall sport because it helps them to make friends. Include them whenever you go places, even if it’s just to the grocery store and what you might think are boring errands. It’s the best bonding time!
Each of our exchange daughters has had her own distinct personality and each girl’s experience has been unique. Each girl gets all of the love and support from us but the rest is up to each of them. Some of our exchange daughters were afraid to try new things and went home a little disappointed. Others have jumped into the opportunity with an open attitude and were willing to try almost anything and they went home with a great experience.
After hosting Cecile, we decided not to have an exchange student the following year. Instead, we became coordinators for Aspect. However, when the students began to arrive in August, our hearts began to burst with envy. It was so late in the placement year; we didn’t think we could get another girl but we got lucky and ended up welcoming Katja from Germany to our family during the 1999/2000 school year. When Katja arrived, she looked like she was twelve years old with her hair dyed red. We thought, “What have we done?”, but Katja found her way into our hearts, and we sent home a confident, mature, happy young lady. It was then that we realized that we could make a real difference in a young person’s life.
Since then we have opened our home and hearts to many young ladies from many different countries. After hosting our 23rd student, Vega from Spain, in 2021/22, we thought we were ready to retire from hosting. But after a year of not having a student in our home, we missed it so much! We know from experience, that a student who is smart, athletic, interested in music (especially piano and singing) and enjoys animals is a great fit for our family. So when we came across the profile of Jeanne from France we knew that we weren’t ready to retire after all!
We have our own Facebook group called “Daughters” which all of our exchange daughters are a part of. We stay in touch with almost all of our students, many have come back to visit us and we have gone to Europe many times to visit them. For example, 5 years ago all our girls chipped in and paid our way for a trip to Europe for a big weekend reunion in Oslo, Norway for our 50th anniversary. It was the best!!! Eight of our girls were able to join and each cooked her favorite dish from her home country. We also had an entire list of songs, which our son put together, that meant something special for each girl during her year. It was sooooo much fun and as you can imagine, lots of laughter and tears. What memories!! They are worth a million dollars!! During our 4 week trip, we also visited several others who weren’t able to come to Oslo.
We feel so much love when we are together with our girls. They have actually planned activities and vacations and hikes with some of their new “exchange sisters”. They value those new found friendships! Since we hosted several Norwegians, it’s not uncommon for two or three of the girls to run into each other on the streets or on a bus in Oslo! We usually get pictures of that happening. So cool! Such a small world! The family we have created with all these girls is amazingly awesome!
Are you interested in making a student a part of your family? We are looking for American host families to welcome a student for the upcoming 2024-25 school year! Check out the profiles of our wonderful students! New student profiles go online every Thursday!
