Residents in the Adair-Casey/Guthrie Center and West Central Valley school districts can get a first-hand global experience without stamping a passport.

World Link, Inc. is looking for households to host two exchange students for the spring semester, and this year Iowa is one of only two states in World Link’s seven-state region that are allowing exchange students because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Regional Program Manager Karen King Fitzgerald says the students go through a rigorous application process to be sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and placed by World Link, “It’s quite an extensive process that they go through and when they’re selected to be a finalist it’s absolutely amazing. These are good students, they normally get A’s and B’s in their classes. They want to do volunteer service, they want to do a lot of service work. I know in Stuart, most all of our students do a lot of community service at the Stuart Library.”

Hosts can be single, married, with or without children, as Fitzgerald says that the perfect family is one who has love in their heart for a child. Fitzgerald hopes to have all her students placed by October 31st, for them to arrive in Iowa this January. Host families can even start talking to their student in the next month. For information on how to become a host family, contact Fitzgerald at 515-491-1551 or karen@worldlinkinc.org.