Set one more plate.
Host a foreign exchange student in Michigan.
You've spent your whole life dreaming of foreign lands. This year, the foreign land can come to you — a high school student with two suitcases, their grandmother's recipes, and a year of stories to tell at your table. All they need is a Michigan family willing to say there's room for you here.
What actually happens when you say yes
Hear their story. Share yours.
It starts as conversation — their life back home, your life here — and becomes something bigger. You learn their culture the way family learns it: from the inside. Their holidays get cooked in your kitchen. Your traditions become theirs to keep.
And when the year ends, the bond doesn’t. Standing invitations abroad, a video call on every birthday, a familiar face at a wedding across the world. Pen pals for life — except family.
This photo is a real Great Lakes host family, visiting their student’s home country together.
Your town, seen for the first time
The first snowfall. A Friday night under stadium lights. The absurd abundance of an American grocery store. Things you stopped noticing twenty years ago become extraordinary again when someone experiences them from your passenger seat.
In return you get their world — how school works in Seoul, what family means in São Paulo, why a holiday you’d never heard of is worth cooking for three days.
Somebody’s grandmother’s recipe, in your kitchen
Forget the textbook version of cultural exchange. It looks like this: a sixteen-year-old from Stuttgart frying spätzle at your stove on a Tuesday. A kid from Bangkok quietly fixing your pad thai. You, learning that dinner in Spain starts at nine and nobody’s in a hurry.
Food is the first language every exchange student speaks. Your table becomes the classroom, and everybody passes. Explore the cultures ISE students bring.
Teenagers with two suitcases and one big dream
Students like these arrive from forty-plus countries every fall — excited, a little nervous, and hoping a Michigan family has room at the table.
Hosting gives back more than it asks
You provide a bed, meals, and a genuine welcome. Here is what comes home with you.
A son or daughter abroad — for life
Host families don’t say “our exchange student.” They say “our kid in Spain.” The year ends; the relationship doesn’t — weddings, graduations, and standing invitations across the ocean.
The world at your dinner table
Their language, their holidays, their grandmother’s recipes — learned in person, from someone who lived it, not from a screen. It’s the closest thing to traveling without leaving home.
Your kids grow global
A built-in big brother or sister from another culture. Kids who grow up with an exchange student gain a wider view of the world than any classroom can teach — and a friend for life.
Michigan, rediscovered
You become the tour guide. The lakes, the fall colors, the small-town festivals you drive past every year — suddenly they’re extraordinary again, because someone is seeing them for the first time.
Real support, all year
Lisa lives here and answers her phone. Behind her: monthly check-ins, a structured rematch process if a placement isn’t working, and ISE’s 24/7 national hotline. You are never on your own.
A story your family tells forever
A graduation photo with a kid who flew five thousand miles to be in it. Ask any host family what they remember about that year — then watch them talk for an hour.
Free, about twenty minutes, zero obligation. Just answers.
Not ready for a full year? Be a Welcome Family.
Open your home for just 4–6 weeks — a warm place for a newly arrived student to start school and settle in while their permanent family is found. Sometimes a few weeks of kindness is exactly what a student needs.
From hello to home in four steps
No mystery, no paperwork avalanche. A careful, human process built over forty years.
Talk it through
A free, zero-pressure video chat. Ask anything — singles, empty nesters, and busy families all host.
Get screened
Application, background checks, and a friendly in-home visit. It protects everyone — including you.
Choose your student
Browse real profiles and pick the kid who fits your family — by interests, language, country, personality.
Live the year
Local support all year, monthly check-ins, and a 24/7 hotline behind you the entire time.
They're already packing
Real students, matched by Lisa here in Michigan. Read who they are, what they love, and request a conversation about any of them.
Let's talk money, honestly
You provide
A bed (sharing a room with a same-gender teen is fine), meals, rides to school, and a genuine seat at the family table. That's the whole list.
They bring
Their own medical insurance, their own spending money, school-ready English, and a serious desire to belong. You never cover their expenses.
The fine print
Hosting is volunteer — nobody's paying you, and nobody's billing you. Families may qualify for a modest monthly charitable tax deduction; ask your tax preparer.
You've dreamed of foreign lands. Now the foreign land pulls up a chair.
Every student on Lisa's list grew up somewhere worth knowing — and they arrive carrying it with them. Hear their stories told first-hand at your own kitchen table, learn their world in person, and next summer, yours might visit theirs.
Every host family I’ve ever worked with started with the same sentence: “We’re just curious.” Curiosity is enough. I’ll walk you through everything else. Lisa Murphy · Regional Manager, Great Lakes ISE · Mount Pleasant, Michigan
From the Great Lakes group
The things everyone asks first
Do we get to choose our student?
Yes. You browse real profiles and choose the student who fits your family — no one is ever assigned to you. Lisa helps you match on interests, language, and personality.
What if it isn't a good fit?
You're never stuck. A local representative supports you all year, and if a placement truly isn't working, there's a structured rematch process. It protects the student and your family alike.
We're empty nesters / single / busy. Can we host?
Yes, yes, and yes. Students thrive in every shape of household. What matters is a bed, meals, transportation to school, and genuine care.
What does hosting cost?
Students arrive fully insured with their own spending money. You cover the ordinary costs of one more person at the table — and may qualify for a monthly charitable tax deduction.
Twenty minutes. No pressure. Just a conversation.
You're not signing up for anything — you're asking questions. That's how every host family's story starts.
Students are matched first-come: families who talk to Lisa early choose from the widest selection of profiles.