This wasn’t the first time Canyon Country resident Krissy Ball welcomed a stranger into her home. Over the years, she and her family have hosted foreign exchange students from the Netherlands and Japan through the Rotary Club of Santa Clarita. 

On Friday, Sept. 23, she offered Andrea Franzoni from Brescia, Italy, a place to stay the night during a remembrance bike ride he’s doing from Seattle to Phoenix in honor of his grandfather who was an Italian POW during World War II. “His grandfather,” Ball said, “was a World War II vet, and my father was, too. My father was in the Navy, in the Pacific Islands — the Marshall Islands — and he was a radar operator.”