![Reaching out. Christopher Lesh, student at Central Catholic High School, serves ice cream during the event on March 2, 2025, at the Portland waterfront. Central Catholic was just one of the schools that sent student volunteers out to cook, prepare, dish, and serve food. Interact club’s co-president Rachel Gerber, junior, plated the food during the event. “I like how direct the contact is,” Gerber said. “You’re there [and] you’re just doing something good. It’s simple, it’s easy, you can feel good about it.”](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/interact-1-edited-1200x744.jpg)
*WEB CONTINUATION: This article originally appeared in Volume 105 Issue 4 of our news magazine, Amplifier.
Each year at the school, families have hosted students from around the world as part of exchange programs.
These programs offer an opportunity for foreign exchange students to experience visiting and studying in the U.S. for 5-12 months at a time.
Exchange students live with a host family for the duration of their time in the U.S., with lodging and food, along with a familial support system provided to them.
Host families offer an environment in which these students can integrate into the school and local communities.
Julliette Weston, one of this year’s host families, has been teaching at the high school for three years and began full-time hosting this year. Her family is hosting Carlotta Hecker, who will be returning to Germany to finish school in the fall.
“We really enjoyed the opportunity for our kids to be exposed to having other students living in our house from different countries. I feel like it’s a great opportunity for our kids to learn about other cultures. Get to know kids who are from different countries, get a little bit more international experience,” Weston said. “We’ve definitely tried to include our student in a lot of the different activities and things that we do, and expose her to lots of different things.”
Through these host families, exchange students receive opportunities for further enrichment, such as school-related sports, church activities, or other extracurriculars.
With hosting an exchange student, there may come challenges with language and cultural differences. Among communication issues, there are also logistical challenges of transportation to and from school and to extracurricular activities.
“Sometimes the language can be a challenge if they don’t speak good English. Luckily, the student we have this year came to us speaking pretty good English, and so we haven’t had a lot of language barriers, but there’s definitely the challenge of adding one more amount of craziness into our lives,” Weston said.
For exchange students, the experience provides a glimpse into American culture as well as an outsider perspective of our campus and community.
This year, Laia Sanchez Soto, senior, a student from Barcelona, Spain, spent part of her senior year in the United States. In her time here, she joined the cross-country team and is currently involved in the track and field team.
“My host family was pretty amazing, I have to say, and I made really good friends. I really miss my family, my friends in Spain, but making such good friends made this so easy that I don’t want to leave now,” Sanchez Soto said.
As well, exchange students get the chance to experience different amenities and resources that our school has to offer.
“A lot of things you have here we don’t have in Spain. Like we don’t have sports in school, we don’t have clubs, we don’t have dances, we don’t have football games, anything like that,” Sanchez Soto said. “So it’s like, I would say, school here is way more fun. I think it’s easier, but also, I think kids enjoy it way more. I think it’s better for your mental health.”
