Foreign exchange students need host families

By By Georgia E. Frye / staff writer
Jan. 22, 2004
Beverly Haskins is the area coordinator for the Center for Cultural Interchange and also has hosted two foreign exchange students over the years in what she has described as a rewarding experience.
Haskins' daughter, Sierra, a sixth-grader at Southeast Middle School, said she also liked living with foreign exchange students.
The Center for Cultural Interchange, one of several organizations that place foreign exchange students, needs at least 15 host families for new students who will arrive in August.
More than 60 foreign students are expected to arrive in Mississippi and about 15 of them have not found families. Interested families would sponsor a student for a period of 10 months.
There is no cost associated with hosing a foreign exchange student. Host families provide room and board, but the students are responsible for their own medical insurance and spending money.
Carpenter said even single people can host a foreign exchange student as long as they are of the same sex and the students' parents agree to the arrangement. All host families must go through an extensive background check before they can host a student.