Host Profile: Walt Cannon and Deb Slivinsky
Our Host Profiles recognize and feature the wonderful hosts in our community whose generosity means the world to our students. Here's Walt and Deb, sharing their story of what hosting means to their family!
We love our homestay hosts and are proud to have a big and diverse hosting community! FIUTS hosts come from around the world, live all over the Puget Sound region, and range from first-time volunteers to hosts who have been welcoming students to their homes for decades.
Our Host Profiles recognize and feature the wonderful hosts in our community whose generosity means the world to our students. Here's Walt and Deb, sharing their story of what hosting means to their family!
Name: Walt Cannon and Deb Slivinsky
Location: Greenlake, Seattle
How long have you hosted students through FIUTS? First time was about 10 years ago
What countries have you hosted students from? France, Germany, Romania, Britain, and Holland
What made you decide to be a host? Deb and I have lived and worked overseas a couple of times and always counted on the kindness of locals to help us get settled in. Additionally, it is a great way to make continuing international connections.
"[Hosting] just continues to reinforce what we learned in our own living and travelling overseas….People the world over have a lot more in common than they do differences." - Walt Cannon
What’s your favorite local place to bring your host students? We love to take them for a walk around Greenlake on a nice day to see Seattleites of all persuasions out enjoying themselves.
What’s your favorite activity to do with your host students? I am a pilot and love to take them flying around the Puget Sound. Most have never been in a general aviation plane and are amazed by the beauty of our area.
Has a host student ever cooked a dish from their home country to share with you? If so, what did they make? Not really :)
What is your all-time favorite memory of hosting an international student? Taking a German student who was studying to be an airline pilot to a small country fly-in. They were delighted and could not believe the variety of private airplanes and freedom American pilots have.
What's your favorite part of U.S. culture to share with your host students? The freedom, opportunity, and diversity of thought that we have here in the US. Foreign students, if they have not traveled widely, might have a fairly narrow view of what the US is like. It may be heavily influenced by negative headline news and pop culture. Deb and I love showing them that though that is real, there are many other aspects of life in the US.
What’s the best thing you’ve learned from your hosting experience? It just continues to reinforce what we learned in our own living and travelling overseas….People the world over have a lot more in common than they do differences.
Have you stayed in touch with any of your host students long-term? Definitely…We have had an opportunity to both meet family members here in Seattle when our students returned and have had chances to visit them in their own country. At the moment we are making plans to visit our last Dutch student at his home when we are cycle touring there later in the summer.
Past Host Profiles:
Karene & Faylynn Busby, Dave Dittemore, Cathy Farrar, Martin Bickeboeller
Interested in a rewarding experience with international students this summer or fall? We are actively looking for hosts to welcome students into their homes for a short-term stay! Contact samantha@fiuts.org for more information or fill out an application today!