Franz Strasser, a digital reporter for BBC World News America and originally from Germany, files a video report about his return to Mayo, Florida, where he spent the 2001-02 school year as a high school exchange student living with the Gresham family. For the Greshams, hosting an exchange student was not only about broadening their horizons, but also about adding another member to their family.

“When you moved into the house and you were straight from Germany,” Aaron Gresham, Strasser’s host brother, reminisced, “it was a big culture shock because, you know, you did things a lot differently than we do things here in the States. But it was a good experience for me, because you were probably the first person from another country that I’ve met.”

Added Strasser’s other host brother, Alex, about hearing his family would take in an exchange student: “I was excited because I was thinking, ‘Oo, another brother!’”

For Strasser, his experience as an exchange student with the Greshams directly led to his current career: “My path to ultimately living and working in the [U.S.] started right here [in Mayo].

Strasser points out, however, that the importance of his time as a high school exchange student ultimately did not lie in school or language studies or the chance to travel to a new place. Rather, it lay in gaining a new family and experiencing the real people and places that make up the United States. As Strasser concludes:

What made it so special was [the Greshams] didn’t treat me as a foreigner; they took me in as one of their own.

…It’s one thing to be lucky enough to spend a year in an American high school as an exchange student. But my idea about this country— its hospitality and the character of its people—was shaped in this small town and by this family.