Contact: Moussa Sissoko (Moose-a SEE-so-ko), international student services, (785) 864-3617.
LAWRENCE--Each year during Thanksgiving, international students join
Kansas and area families for a visit through the Betty Grimwood
Thanksgiving Homestay Program at the University of Kansas.
KU's Office of International Student Services is seeking area
families and international students to participate in a homestay
visit this Thanksgiving.
Families wishing to be a homestay host and international students
wishing to participate should call Moussa Sissoko, program
coordinator, in international student services by Nov 1 at (785)
864-3617.
The homestay program offers Kansas and the Kansas City area residents
the opportunity to be host to international students over the
Thanksgiving holiday break. Options include inviting a student to
stay in your home from Tuesday evening, Nov. 21, to Sunday afternoon,
Nov. 26, or inviting one or more international students to your home
for Thanksgiving dinner.
Joe Potts, director of KU's international student services, said that
host families from several cities in Kansas have regularly
participated in recent years. In addition to Lawrence, hosts have
been from Burns, Emporia, the Kansas City area, Lecompton, Marion,
McLouth, Olathe, Peabody and Topeka.
This will be the 46th year that residents of Burns, a rural Kansas
community about 60 miles northeast of Wichita, have invited KU
international students to their homes for the Thanksgiving weekend.
Last year, KU named the homestay program in honor of Betty Grimwood,
who was one of the Burns residents helping to organize the homestay
visits from 1954 through 1998. Following her death in May 1999,
friends and relatives continued the Burns Thanksgiving community
tradition of inviting international students from KU for a weekend
visit.
About 19 families and 27 students participated in 1999, Sissoko said.
KU has 1,534 international students on campus. The homestay program
is targeted for new students so that all who want to visit a family
during Thanksgiving will have an opportunity. Sometimes students are
invited to return each year, however.
This year KU's largest group of international students is from India, with 176 students. Other countries with large numbers of students
enrolled at KU include China with 153; Japan, 127; Korea, 125;
Malaysia, 63; and Indonesia, 52.
Potts described the homestay program as foreign relations at the
grass-roots level. "Sadly many international students return to their
countries never having been in the home of someone in their host
country," Potts said.
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