Sandy Mossy

“My experience of being a “host family” was so much more than just picking up 2 students from the airport and having them sleep in our guest house.

Carlo and Ahmed became a really special part of our family. We loved the conversations we had and enjoyed learning about their culture and their lives. We loved sharing our faith, country, holidays and the things that make us all alike. I know that we will always care about them and hope to see them again someday. To say that they enriched our lives is an understatement!

We were blessed.”

Ron and Nicola Ranson

“The Solana Beach Host Family program gives us a yearly opportunity to help international students who face many of the situations we have encountered abroad. Nicola and I have hosted students since 1995. These "hostings" add such a wonderful and rich fabric to our lives. We stay in touch with many of the students and we expect many of them will be in our lives forever. Our lives would not be the same without the host family program.”

John and Mary Benbow

“We have hosted students from Mexico, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Greece, Turkey and China in San Diego and New England. These experiences (as brief as a few days and as long as 6 months) have been genuinely rewarding for us. We've always felt we received far more than we gave. We have welcomed young people at the most exciting and forward-looking time in their lives, helped them adjust to American ways, foods, customs, and sometimes language. The Solana Beach Host Family affiliation has been one of the best, with a good, supportive network of people likewise committed to welcoming students into our homes and communities. Being a host family is one of the most positive and enjoyable ways to make a helpful contribution to the world.”

Susan Doshier

“Being a host family for the past four years has been such a rewarding experience for our entire family. We have come to love each one of our “UCSD daughters” and miss them all now that they have gone back to their home countries.

From the time we are matched in the summer, through picking them up at the airport and going shopping for school supplies and cell phones to spending holidays together and introducing them to the American way of life it really is a great time for us as a family to show American hospitality and make memories with our new friends from around the world. Our three teenage daughters take great pride when our students attend their school events as part of our family and think of these UCSD students sort of as “big sisters”.

We still keep in touch regularly with our past 5 students and will be visiting two of them later this year when they both get the chance to show us their home countries. I hope when my daughters are in college studying abroad we can find a program for them to link up with like the Solana Beach Host Family Program!”

Apply today to be a host in the Solana Beach Host Family Program. We’d love to welcome you into our international community.