My name is Karen Pillon and I'm an
associate university librarian at the
Leddy Library. The Host for the
Holidays program is a wonderful program
that we do here at the University of
Windsor to connect staff and faculty
with the different students, especially
international students, at the University.
It's one of the ways that we can give to
the students who typically don't know a
lot about our culture in terms of the
holiday of Thanksgiving and we're able
to share with them what we do on that
day, the kinds of foods we eat, as well we
get to learn from them. So it's a really
nice way to exchange the kinds of things
that we typically, who we are as people,
and also the kinds of things that we do
in our culture. So one of the most
important things is to get the students
to understand and become aware of the
Canadian experience so one of the things
that we can do is, through Thanksgiving
and the different holidays that we
celebrate, include them in those kinds of
things to make them more aware. So even
maybe they've never had a turkey before,
such as some of the students that I've
had at my house. They take pictures of
the turkey as if it was like Beyonce
coming out of the you know door, because
they're so impressed with with this huge
with this huge bird that's coming out of
the oven, so just the the we forget and I
think we take for granted a lot of the
things that for us are very regular and
things we do every year and for them
it's a brand new experience. So
there's a lot of excitement there this
year. We are going to give an opportunity
for host families who would like to have
international students at their house to
be entered in a draw for 200 dollars to
be given to the student food bank and
that's an excellent initiative and what
better way to do that because it is
Thanksgiving and it's the season of
giving so that will be awesome.
