For others, it's international golf and bowling tournaments. Volunteers, such as Akron's group, in 44 U.S. states provide programs and open their homes to the 4,500 international visitors hosted each year by the State Department. The group had not known beforehand about the nomination. AIF was founded in 1972 as Hosting International Travelers by a group of people headed by the late June Rogers. The name was changed to AIF in 1993.
Host families report that they learn as much as their visitors do, and it is rewarding for both.
In return, many of these students talk to children in area schools about their countries as part of AIF's International Speakers Program, broadening the Americans' understanding of other cultures. In addition, each summer AIF volunteers host students and teachers from Tohoku Gakuin University in Japan for four-day visits, their only home visits on a lengthy tour of the United States. On a professional as well as personal level, AIF also hosts visiting dignitaries who come to the United States to learn about aspects of American life such as business and economic development, government, environmental programs, education, public health systems and others. Sixty to 80 such visitors from around the world visit Akron each year, sent by the State Department in Washington. These visitors have included such people as a prince from Swaziland, college English professors from Russia, an Italian member of Parliament, a group of Ukrainian scientists, Ethiopian Supreme Court justices, and judges and a member of Parliament from the Czech Republic.