Twinn Palms Homestay Services, which finds families for international students to live with, is expanding its services into more New York schools. Families can host up to two international students at a time.
Twinn Palms Homestay Services is a program for international students to live and study in the United States. For the 2015-2016 school year, Twinn Palms is adding schools in Rego Park, Queens and Maspeth, Riverhead, Oyster Bay, Hicksville, and Hempstead on Long Island to accommodate international middle school and high school students who to attend school and stay with host families in the area.
Twinn Palms first expanded to New York in spring 2014 after international families expressed an interest in U.S. college prospects for their children, especially the Ivy League schools across the East Coast.
Mavis Cordero, vice president of Twinn Palms, says the most rewarding part about hosting an international student is that you are bringing a little bit of the world into your home. “You’re going to learn what makes us different but really all the things that we have in common—the zones of commonality that binds different cultures into a home,” Cordero says.
Along with the new locations, Twinn Palms is expanding the age range to include college students for the upcoming school year. There are 50 Twinn Palms seniors graduating this year that have been with the program for two to three years, and many of them want to stay with the same or different host families while attending college in the U.S.
Families that are interested in hosting an international student should fill out an application on the website. Host families receive a generous monthly stipend per child, and families can host one to two children at a time. Recruiting is now open until July.
Above photo: The Gohlsen family hosts Lou Mingxuan, from Zhengzhou, China, in Riverhead.
