An Exchange of Cultures, Ideas: One Family's Experience Hosting 17 Exchange Students

Most people interested in learning more about a particular place or a group of people book a flight to Fiji or a cabin on a Caribbean cruise ship.

But not Gail Sturm.

The Lake Forest resident has managed to become one of the most cultured and worldly residents of the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff area without spending a dime on costly travel itineraries.

No, Gail and her husband, Bill, receive their daily dose of culture and worldliness from the foreign exchange students they bring into their home. They have been hosting these students regularly for nearly 15 years through the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Rotary Club's Rotary Youth Exchange (RYE) program.

The first of these students, Audriana, came to stay with the Sturms in 1996. Audriana had been invited by the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Rotary Club to stay with another family in their community that year, but the family decided at the last minute that they would be unable to host a student. The Sturms graciously agreed to let Audriana stay with them instead.

Bill, who was serving as the Rotary Club's president at the time of Audriana's visit, couldn't bear to see the foreign student stranded in an unfamiliar country with nowhere to stay.

"We imagined what it would be like if our own daughter was in a foreign country and didn’t have a family to go to. So we said we would take Audriana," he explained. "And then every year after, it just didn’t seem like a good idea not to be a host family.”

Since Audriana's visit, the Sturms have hosted 16 additional international students, who have hailed from countries like Argentina, Brazil, the Philippines, Germany, Denmark, Venezuela, Switzerland, Finland, Turkey, Belgium, and Lithuania.

Their experience with these young travelers has been an overwhelmingly positive one, and the Sturms hope that they will be able to continue hosting exchange students for years to come.

"These individuals entered our lives as strangers and left as family members who encouraged us to grow by their very presence," Gail said. "The experience breaks down barriers. It encourages you to embrace and celebrate differences."

The Sturm's children, Nick and Alexandra, not only experience the RYE program with exchange students in their own home, they also participated in the program as well. They both chose to spend a year studying abroad in Argentina. They visited the country at different times, and stayed with different host families, but both children had a similarly positive experience.

In much the same way, Gail encourages interested Lake Forest-Lake Bluff residents to apply to be host families through RYE.

"You recognize how narrow you can become," she said of her experience as a host mother. "It's a bit of a wake-up call, and if you allow yourself to open up, you realize all the gifts that can emerge. Experiences and relationships are the jewels. You never know what language you will hear at the coffee pot in the morning, and that really keeps our outlooks expansive."

For more information about the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Rotary Club, visit www.lflbrotary.org.