With just two days left in Italy’s 2023 school year, Pietro Setti was finally informed where he would study abroad: Lone Tree, Iowa, nearly 5,000 miles away from home. Despite the short notice, the distance and the fact Setti had no say where he would go, he was nothing but excited. “I know that traveling is very fun, discovering new places and new cultures,” Setti said. “The US is not [very] different than a European country, visually. But still, we have a lot of differences.”

At the same time, Lone Tree residents Josh Spilman and Elsie Spilman contemplated if they would house another foreign exchange student while their son, Greyson, completed his sophomore year. When the Spilmans’ daughter, Darrian, was a senior in 2014, they housed their first foreign exchange student; this would be their second.