![\"Smithies](\"http:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/gatenew\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/tgiving1-230x167.jpg\")
To guide her in making the matches, Morris uses a brief survey about dietary restrictions, preferred family environments and why students and hosts were drawn to the program. Host families agree to provide a meal on Thanksgiving Day and transportation for their guests.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe program is really cool,\u201d said Bishop, whose family has hosted students for each of the past five Thanksgivings. \u201cIt\u2019s an education for us and for the students.\u201d<\/p>\n
This year, Cynthia Masai and Zuliat Owoade, both juniors,\u00a0joined Bishop\u2019s family for a meal and a walk around the Tighe-Carmody Reservoir near the family\u2019s home in Southampton.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe students also played in the snow, which for Zuliat, was the first time,\u201d Bishop said. \u201cThey also both went up for seconds of the holiday meal, and that means a lot to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Masai said Bishop’s family was “welcoming, lovely and funny\u2014people you want to be with every minute.”<\/p>\n
“The food was amazing,” added Masai, who is from Kenya.<\/strong> “For once I forgot that I was away from home.”<\/p>\n Klinger ’87 said she frequently hosts Smith athletes for the holidays, but this is the first year she decided to participate in the match program. Shreya Sengupta ’18, Chunying Huangdai ’17 and Kyung Hyun Mhin ’16 signed up to join Klinger\u2019s family and one of her rowers, Liz Sukhinenko \u201915, for Thanksgiving festivities.<\/p>\n What did that entail?<\/p>\n \u201cThe students came over in time to taste things, help mash potatoes, finish setting up and eat\u2014a lot!\u201d Klinger said.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter enjoying our traditional Thanksgiving food, including my grandmother\u2019s cornbread stuffing, they all played a rousing and cutthroat game of Monopoly with my 11-year-old son, John,\u201d she added. \u201cHe managed to trounce the Smithies!\u201d<\/p>\n Jingyi Gan \u201917 said she was eager to be part of the holiday match program because \u201cI generally like to talk to people and I wanted to experience Thanksgiving in a traditional way.\u201d<\/p>\n Gan, who hails from China, said she was also looking for a chance to \u201cget in touch with people outside of school.\u201d<\/p>\n Gan and fellow sophomore Junzhou Liu were matched with Patsy Kauffman Barber, an educational consultant who attended Smith for a semester in 1992. Alumnae\u00a0Raquel Manzanares \u201908 and Maureen Mollahan AC \u201910, a philanthropic officer in the development office,\u00a0were also guests at\u00a0Kauffman Barber’s table.<\/p>\n Kauffman Barber\u2019s daughters, Sophie, 8, and Casey, 10, attend the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School in Hadley and were thrilled to be able to spend time with the two students at Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n Her daughters were \u201ca little shy about speaking,\u201d Kauffman Barber said. \u201cBut they had a fun time just hearing about China and sharing places they knew\u00a0on the map.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Cynthia](\"http:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/gatenew\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Masai2-230x165.jpg\")