For both exchange students and their host families, the opportunity to learn about new cultures and traditions while forming lasting relationships is one they will never forget.

Opening one’s home to a complete stranger for anywhere from five months to a year as the host of a foreign exchange student is certainly a commitment, and people choose to take it on for a variety of reasons. For Lisa Hollingshead, the decision was based on “a sign from the universe.”

After her husband passed away in 2020, leaving her alone in their Maitland home with her two daughters grown and out of the house, a neighbor suggested she think about welcoming in a student. Hollingshead was intrigued by the idea and kept it in the back of her head but didn’t act on it for about a year. Then one day she was attending an awards banquet through her job with Orlando Health, and in the lobby an organization called EF High School Exchange Year had set up a station to recruit hosts. When Hollingshead saw their banner that read, “Ask me about hosting exchange students,” she knew it was meant to be.

“I have a four-bedroom house and I live in a good school district, so I figured I might as well check it out,” she says. “It has worked out very well. I’ve had a very positive experience.”

Hollingshead has hosted two female students for a semester each—one from Germany and one from Austria—and both attended Winter Park High School, the same school that Hollingshead, her husband and her two children all graduated from. She has welcomed both students with open arms and tried to give them enriching, well-rounded experiences, traveling with them to North Carolina and Georgia to visit family as well as taking in plenty of local sights.

“I’m pretty social and I have a lot of networks within this area, and I wanted to show these students everything that Central Florida has to offer,” she says. “We did a lot: Blue Springs, the beach, art festivals. I have a Disney pass and I always go to Candlelight Processional over the holidays, so I took each of them to that. … Part of my goal was to expose them to as much as possible in Central Florida and beyond.”

Lisa Mohrman has been a valuable resource to Hollingshead as EF’s regional coordinator for South Florida, a coverage area that includes Orange, Osceola and Lake counties. The mother of four has also been a host many times herself, opening her home to students from Spain, Germany and Norway.

“People get so much out of it,” she says. “It really varies, because of course we have hosts who have young kids in the house and want to introduce them to people from around the world without necessarily investing in travel at that point in their lives. So there are little siblings who gain big siblings, and then there are people with high schoolers in their home who gain a friend and an enriching experience for their high schooler and the whole family.

“There’s also retirees, empty nesters, widowers—all kinds of older folks who take students in because they have a little more time, and I think it’s [invaluable] for them to go experience, especially in a place like Florida, all of their local offerings with a student. I think it really motivates people to get out and do things that they might not have enjoyed doing by themselves as much. … It’s a way to be engaged and social, and you grow a global family. A lot of people travel and visit their exchange students in their homes afterwards. The kids we’ve hosted are all family to us and we’ve visited them several times overseas and had them back to our home many times.”

EF, which works throughout the country alongside the U.S. Department of State, places students mainly from Europe and Asia who are on J-1 visas. In that type of program, the students don’t choose which state they are going to, and host families do not receive a stipend or any financial compensation, although they can receive a $500 award for referring another host. Hollingshead was responsible for room and board and often treated her students to dinner outside the house, but their families paid for any travel, tickets to shows and other entertainment outings.

On the flip side, Mohrman explains, the students on J-1 visas must meet certain standards.

“J-1 is different in that we’re looking for hosts who are motivated by volunteerism and the cultural part of it,” she says. “In exchange for that, the students have to be a higher caliber to get selected, so they have grade requirements, mental-health requirements and motivation requirements. They go through a pretty intensive interview process in person and online.”

In an F-1 program, students do have a say in where they are placed, and hosts receive a monthly stipend to help cover the costs of housing, feeding and transporting the student to school or activities. Cristina Figueiro has experienced both sides—as a native of Brazil, she came to the U.S. as an exchange student in high school on a J-1 visa and was placed in Utah, and now the Lake Baldwin resident is the founder and president of ExchangeMate International Education, an organization that has placed students on the F-1 visa for the past 15 years.

“When I did it we didn’t have options, but my experience was wonderful,” she says. “I had a great host family; we’re still in touch and they’ve met my husband and my kids. You create a very special bond with your family. I think everyone who has the opportunity to do it should do it.

“When I moved here, I started ExchangeMate initially to place students from Brazil, but later we started getting students from many different countries. We started the program in Orlando but now we place in several states and it’s grown a lot.”

Figueiro has also hosted herself, welcoming in a boy from Germany and a girl from China who is now attending college in Seattle. She is always looking to recruit more host families, and like Mohrman, sees a wide range of people who choose to accept the challenge.

“There are different reasons, but in the end the benefits of hosting are that you really create a bond with that student,” she says. “We have families that after the program, they go and visit their students in their home country or their kids go and visit their host siblings. They really become part of your family and it’s like a second family. I call my host family my American family, so I have my Brazilian family and my American family.

“That’s for sure one of the biggest benefits, and the other thing is it’s very interesting because in your daily life you don’t realize that the way you do things is not the way that everybody does things around the world. It’s funny to see the first grocery shopping trip with your student, and how amazed they are that here in the U.S. everything is big, like the big cereal boxes. For us it’s so normal, but when you see a student getting excited about the little things, it makes you have a different perspective.”

One of Figueiro’s most dependable hosts is Kathy Downs, who she initially reached out to after seeing Downs’ initiative to fix and provide bikes for foster children in the area. An empty nester who has several open bedrooms in the house she shares with her partner, JT, Downs has been hosting students since 2019—even during the lockdown days of the pandemic—and tries to make it a memorable experience for the kids as well as one in which they grow up and become more independent.

“I focus on helping them become adults, so I want them to think about things, solve problems and learn more adult skills,” she says. “If it’s a boy I always say, ‘You come here as a boy; I want to send you home a man. I want you to take initiative, help your mom with stuff, be a little more independent.’ I teach them how to cook, how to do things around the house, and I also want them to have experiences that are [different].

“Maybe in their country, they don’t have certain things that we have here, like kayaking or seeing alligators on Wekiwa Springs. I always like to take the kids to Kennedy Space Center, because most of their countries don’t have space programs like the United States.”

Downs usually hosts two students at a time because she feels it’s easier on them to have a built-in friend to navigate a new country and school with, and to enjoy leisure time together. This past year, she had Lucas, a one-semester student from Austria, and Michal, a full-year student from Slovakia who is still with her and finishing up his junior year. He is a star butterflier who competed for the Winter Park swim team and has dreams of representing his country at the Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.

Downs keeps in touch with all of her previous students as well and hosts a “family call” about once a month for all of them. Several have come back and stayed with her on vacation.

“For a lot of people who are thinking about ever doing this, if you were a good parent, you can be a good host parent,” she says. “Those are 100% translatable skills. If you were already successful doing it, you can do it again. The thing I would say about kids that come over, they are never going to be troubled kids, they are always high-performing, respectful, well-behaved kids. I’ve never had any kind of problem with the kids. This is a privilege and their families pay a lot of money for them to be able to do it, so they come here highly motivated and wanting to have a great experience with their host family.”

Eddie Barrios has hosted several times through ExchangeMate as well: He previously welcomed an Italian student into his home, and during the current academic year he has Julia from Brazil and Stephanie from Austria, who both attend West Orange. The married father of three also has his two youngest children still living with him, and they have been on board with the idea from the start.

“They thought it would be nice to have someone from another country living here and being able to learn their language and culture, and have them learn ours. It was convenient for everybody,” he says. “We are from South America [originally], so we speak both English and Spanish in our household. It’s very useful in my experience with work to be able to speak two languages, especially in the [sales] business I’ve been in for the last 25 years. … If you get a chance, it’s good to learn a third language too, like Portuguese or Italian or German. My kids have taken advantage of the opportunity to learn a third language. It helps to be well-rounded.”

Barrios and his family like to take their students to Disney Springs and Universal CityWalk, and also have plans to travel with them to Atlanta. He tries his best to treat every student he hosts like they are his own children.

“We’ve had a great experience,” he says. “The student from Italy, her parents really appreciated us being able to take care of her and show her a good time and welcome her into our family. They have made it clear that if we ever go to Italy, we have a place to stay in their home. There’s definitely a good connection that we have with our students. We treat them like family, we take care of them and we try to provide the support they need. Kids are going to get homesick—to be away from your school, your family and your friends for four or five months is not that easy for teenagers. So our family makes sure that we provide a support system.”

Hollingshead has formed a similar bond with her students, and credits EF for pairing her with teens who share similar interests. Her most recent student, Helena Kimbacher from Austria, even had her parents visit for the last few days of her stay in January, and Hollingshead clicked with them too.

“I took them to the airport and two days later Helena texted me and said, ‘OK, I’ve seen all of my friends in Austria. Can I come back?’ She really had a good time here,” Hollingshead says with a laugh.

“Helena was very social and she immediately got involved with the swim team at Winter Park High School. She was a little too late to try out for the team because of where her birthday fell, but it worked out because they liked her and made her the manager. … That was awesome because she integrated very well into high school life and had an immediate friend group. She was very well liked and will be missed by the group.”

Reached through email, Kimbacher spoke about her experience, saying it was her first time in America and she particularly enjoyed visiting the beach and eating at Chick-fil-A. She did not choose Florida but now calls it her “second home,” and she could not have asked for a better host.

“Lisa is one of the best people I have ever met,” she says. “She was so nice and welcoming and we got along great. I always told her so much gossip.”

Kimbacher was asked if she recommends other students try an exchange program.

“Yes, definitely,” she says. “It might be scary at first but just do it—there is always a flight home.”