East Lansing Welcomes the World

This program has been an annual event since 2010, so many of the kinks have been worked out. Each year we get more community organizations who want to display information or who want to volunteer to greet the students. We use community volunteers as ambassadors to greet and talk to the students about the community.

Approximately 300 or more people attend — mostly international, undergraduate and graduate students and their families. Other attendees include city staff, library staff and community members. Many of the community members are also the ambassadors at the event, who greet and engage the international students in conversation or explain how things work in the city of East Lansing.

In earlier years, we just had the food in buffet lines, and attendees served themselves. We have learned to have volunteers serve the food because when the students were able to serve themselves, we found that some of them were making five or six heaping plates for themselves to take home, and we were running out of food during the event. It was frustrating for the caterer, so we decided to have volunteers help with dishing up the food. Area restaurants also like to donate food to the event, so we have additional food donations.

The committee meets after the event to debrief and recommend changes for the program next year.

We receive lots of verbal accolades from students, families, community members and staff about how wonderful the event is and how much they love talking with each other. One student from India shared how the event impacted him. He left his family, friends, wife and children behind to come study at Michigan State University for at least five years. He told me how he was so depressed when he got to Michigan that he wanted to go home right away. He heard about the event at the library just a few weeks after he arrived, and he decided to come to get a library card and meet some people. The student signed up for a card, looked around the library and talked to staff until others arrived. He was reserved and not comfortable approaching people to start a conversation. He decided to look at books about India to quell his homesickness. Library staff saw him and pulled him into conversations with other international students. From that day on he credits and thanks the East Lansing Public Library for welcoming him and making him feel comfortable. He now volunteers at this event as an ambassador. He goes back to India for the first time at the end of December, and we will all miss him!