Host Families Sought for City's Exchange Student Program With Japan

St. Petersburg families are invited to share their home and culture for one week this July with a visiting high school student from Japan. Applications are now being accepted from St. Petersburg families to host an exchange student from our Sister City of Takamatsu, either the week July 20 to 25, or July 26 to August 2, 2012. Applications must be postmarked by Friday, June 29.

Four teenage students (three young women and one young man) from Takamatsu will visit St. Petersburg as part of an international student ambassador program. Host families are encouraged to participate in the cultural exchange by including their Japanese guest in routine tasks like grocery shopping or planned trips to area museums, the beach, theme parks and going to the mall. During their stay, Japanese student ambassadors and their host families are invited to meet city officials at a City Council meeting and participate in a potluck Thanksgiving celebration.

Information on the Student Ambassador Host Family program is available in the Homestay Exchange Guide and Host Family application, available by calling the Arts and International Relations office at 727-893-7465 or online at www.stpete.org/hostfamily.

This program is administered by the city's International Relations Committee, which also selects two St. Petersburg high school students to visit Takamatsu for three weeks each summer in a cultural exchange. St. Petersburg's students leave for Takamatsu on June 29.  

This summer's ambassador program wraps up a year-long 50th anniversary dedication of its Sister City relationship with Takamatsu, established in 1961. Highlights of the celebration included a Japanese delegation visit to St. Petersburg in October 2011, led by Takamatsu Mayor Hideto Onishi. In November, Mayor Foster led a similar delegation from St. Petersburg to Takamatsu to complete the ceremony.