Curious About Hosting an Exchange Student?

Families who host international high school students often tell us about the joy of experiencing another culture while sharing the American way of life. Cultural exchange experiences can be life-changing for the high schooler AND for the host family. Host Families often develop long-lasting relationships with their foreign exchange students and their families. Open your heart and home to an international exchange student and perhaps you will find yourself halfway around the globe celebrating with them and their family in the years that follow your hosting experience. 

Anyone with an open mind, open heart, and willingness to share their home and culture may be a host family. Located in every state, volunteer host families provide our young ambassadors a wide range of landscapes, climates, activities, and lifestyles. Greenheart Exchange Host Families are flexible and open-minded, are age 26 or older, and represent the diversity that is America. Host families are of varied economic, religious, and racial backgrounds and include working parents, empty nesters, singles, and single parents.

Host Families provide:

• Open communication, encouragement, patience and sound advice
• A separate bed (which can be in a shared room with a host sibling of similar age and same gender), and a quiet place to study
• Three daily meals
• Local transportation (students are not permitted to drive while on the program)
• Treatment as a member of the family, which may include household rules, responsibilities, and privileges

The health and safety of each student is our highest priority. We ask our host families to abide by regulations of the U.S. Department of State and to policies outlined by Greenheart Exchange and the Council of Standards for International and Educational Travel (CSIET).

First, complete our form below. You’ll receive an email with login information to our online database to begin the application. You will also be contacted by a Local Coordinator in your area to outline the program and answer your questions.