For some, home is where the host family is

Interest in program is waning according to some town participants

When Lisa Calvo, OC '84, heard about Oberlin's Host Family Program, she liked the idea. She imagined it might be nice to have a family to invite her to dinner and pick her up at the airport. Before long, she had four.

Faye Taylor's family was one of the four families that hosted Calvo through Oberlin's Host Family Program. The program, which was officially launched in 1972, matches Africana students with families in the Oberlin community.

"We try to fix it as a home away from home," Taylor said. "It's just wonderful. We've met so many nice students. They stayed here on break and they'd come to church with us."

MRC intern for the Africana community Carmen Mitchell administers the program, as the MRC interns have for years. Mitchell said the program provides support to students who might feel alienated at Oberlin.

Participants in the program feel that the program helps them form important bonds.

"I thought it was very comforting to know people cared," Calvo said. "I could just pick up the phone and call someone down the road."

Taylor's host students have played with her children and given her voice lessons. Taylor has cooked meals for them and given them a place to study. And somehow, over dinners and after church, the students Taylor hosted have become part of her family.

These family ties often continue after students graduate and leave Oberlin. There was the host student who graduated and went to study in Cleveland. She called Taylor after she'd left Oberlin, wanting to ask advice.

"She called and she said to me, 'Thomas asked me to marry me,'" Taylor said. "She said 'You have to talk to him. You have to ask him his intentions.' She'd bring him over and she kept asking, "When are you all going to talk to him?' Her mother and father didn't feel no ways hurt about it."

The Taylors stood beside their student at her wedding.

"She really acted like we were her parents," Taylor said. "She blended in just like family."

Students stressed that they think of their hosts just like family. "Barbara Lucky is my host mother and I love her to death," sophomore Michael Preacely said. "When I see her, I say 'hi, mom.'" Preacely is looking forward to introducing Lucky to his mother and grandmothers this weekend.

Reverend Fred Steen, OC '55, pastor of the Mt. Zion Baptist Church, was instrumental in the creation of the host family program. Members of the church worked with members of Abusua, the African-American student union, to develop a process that would allow College students to become part of the Oberlin community. Catherine Rhinehardt, a resident of Oberlin, is generally acknowledged as the mother of the program.

College students and town members had previously formed informal alliances. Taylor, who worked at May Cottage from 1957 to 1972, recalls inviting student workers over for a home-cooked meal of greens and cornbread.

"Their education is incomplete if they get a degree from Oberlin College and have not had the chance to become part of the community," Steen said. "There is wisdom that has helped me in my life's work that I got not from the classroom, not from professors, but from people who had gained wisdom just from living. This is a wonderful program. It is precious to my heart."