(WARRENSBURG, Mo.) – UCM’s Friendship Families program pairs international students with members of the Warrensburg community to form worldwide friendships.

Katie Kim, a junior international studies major, is the intern for Friendship Families, a program hosted by the office of Mentoring, Advocacy and Peer Support at UCM. Kim said the program’s goal is to facilitate cultural exchange.

“Some community members will say ‘Oh my gosh, I never knew we had the whole world here in Warrensburg’ or ‘I’ve never met anyone from China, I’ve never met anyone from Saudi Arabia,’ Kim said. “And when community members can meet people from these places, that’s when the image of these countries begins to change in our community and that’s what’s really exciting for me.”
Unlike a traditional host family that would house a student, friendship families are encouraged to spend time with their students at least once a month. Jenne Vanderbout, the assistant vice president for alumni and development at the UCM Alumni Foundation, was paired with two students during the fall semester. She said she and her husband have hosted exchange students in the past, but their schedules haven’t allowed for it recently.

“The Friendship Families (program), when it was presented, was fantastic because we still got to interact with international students, learn about another culture, share the U.S., Missouri (and) Warrensburg with somebody, but it wasn’t the same time commitment of having somebody living with us for four months,” Vanderbout said.

Kim said every community member is welcome to apply.

“We call it Friendship Families, but family can be an individual,” Kim said. “It can be a grad student, it can be a couple, an unmarried couple, a huge family… it can be anything.”

Kim said applicants go through a background check before being matched up with international students. She said the program hosts a meet and greet early in the semester so students and families can meet each other and then they provide suggestions for activities to do at least once a month with the students.

“Some people get really creative, I mean we’ve had people go to nature parks or state parks, go for walks, they go shopping together, they build crafts together,” Kim said.

Vanderbout said she and her husband took the two students to a soccer game, a pumpkin patch and to the Jack-’O-Lantern Festival at Powell Gardens.

“We’ve enjoyed getting to know them,” Vanderbout said. “The women that we hosted this year were both from Korea… and that’s not someplace we’ve traveled and that’s not a culture that we know a lot about, so we have had a lot of fun getting to know them and then kind of sharing experiences with them.”

She said one evening the two exchange students cooked an entire Korean meal for them.

“The students have been fantastic and we’ve really enjoyed it and we’re going to do it again next year. It’s fun,” Vanderbout said. “It’s once a week, (or) once every couple of weeks, and we’re getting a lot out of it and we know the students are getting a lot out of it too.”

Shuzo Uga, an aviation major from Tokyo, Japan, said he joined the program to make a friend and experience American culture. He said the program helped him have the American experience he wanted. Uga said he stayed with his friendship family a few days over Thanksgiving break.

“We cooked dinner, hung out, (and) went to Kansas City for shopping,” he said.

Uga said his friendship family took him to church with them and even took him to a shooting range. He said he was able to shoot a shotgun, machine gun, rifle and hand gun.

“In Japan it’s illegal,” Uga said. “But here we can do (it) as kind of a hobby, so I experienced culture shock.”

Uga said he enjoyed the experience.

“It was so nice, but I felt kind of crazy,” Uga said.

Uga said these experiences are good for international students.

“Some people stay at UCM just one or two semesters. It’s kind of a short time and some people cannot make friends at all, so it’s very helpful for international students,” Uga said.

Kim said ideally they would like to have a set deadline for applicants, but the program will always accept more families.

“We try to do a big match at the beginning of each semester, and that takes about the first month of school, so if they apply within the next week then we should match everybody by February,” Kim said. “But we will have a long waiting list, so anytime a family will apply we will be able to find a student for them.”

Kim said it’s rewarding to her when her international friends tell her they’re spending time with their friendship families.

“Just knowing that they really do have an American family, a home away from home where they feel comfortable and they genuinely enjoy spending time together, that really motivates me to just make the best match as possible and take that as seriously as I can,” Kim said. “I want students to have that close friendship/relationship with a family here.”

Applications for the Friendship Families program can be submitted at https://www.ucmo.edu/maps/FriendshipFamilies.cfm.

For more information, contact Katie Kim at kek82170@ucmo.edu.