What is a welcome basket? Well its a basket that welcomes. Duh. Seriously though, we use to introduce our students to some local snacks and goodies, we include some useful items, and of course it is supposed to make them feel welcomed into their new home.
So what do we put in them?
It varies every year but we do have some standards that go in such as:
Snacks and candy (we are from North Carolina, so we lean towards southern goodies but branch out to include just Americanness)(do not forget to take allergies into account when picking our snacks):
Corn-nuts, because they are weird and very southern; but you could go with actual nuts too: our area is big into peanuts so we could some peanuts in too.
Reeses. 99.9% of exchange students LOVE Reeses. Oddly enough our first student was the .01% that did not, but everyone else has.
Doritos (Cool Ranch because it’s not a regular flavor outside the US) or some other chip type snack (maybe I’ll get some Chesapeake Bay flavored chips this year).
Some type of boxed candy.
A package of Nabs (or Nabisco peanut butter cracker sandwich) because they are from North Carolina and its staple down here.
Glass bottle of Coke a Cola, name brand.
Glass bottle of Cheerwine, another North Carolina thing. No its not wine, it is a cherry flavored soda and some people love it and others hate it. We have successfully had one IEC student that actually liked it haha. But it's a staple here, you will even see cheer wine floats, so we feel it is important to make them try this weird soda.
Other items/non-food (these change from year to year, so this list is just ideas and not every items goes into the basket):
USB plug, handy for charging their phones, and then they aren’t borrowing yours all the time. A lot of students are coming from countries that have different electrical outlets so this is one thing that won’t need to be plugged into an adaptor.
A mini American flag.
A mini bluetooth speaker (you can get these pretty cheap).
A re-usable water bottle.
Their own coffee/tea mug.
T-shirt: local town, school, local sports team, or America themed
Journal, cute notebooks, a planner
A key chain from your area with your house key (we usually present this after about a week—because they won’t need it until later anyways—and have a little lesson on key responsibility and how to use it, you would be shocked on how many students struggled with unlocking/locking my door)
An instant film camera, we have not done this one because it is a little pricey and we double host so it would be too much for us.
Guide book to your area, or just a book about your area.
We also include a card with all the phone numbers they might need and our address (tell them to put this information in their phone). There is also a card with some basic things like wifi information, how to operate the TVs, laundry stuff, and bathroom stuff.
Bathroom Stuff:
So a lot of welcome basket ideas I’ve looked at online had a lot of bathroom products in them. Like almost all bathroom stuff. We do not do that. There is shampoo, conditioner, and soap in the shower that they can use. This year we have a ton of left over bathroom items from previous students (we even have brand new toothbrushes and razors), so this years girls can use them until they run out or until we can go to the store.
The reason I do not buy bath products for their baskets is: have you ever met a teenage girl? They are picky! I am picky too, I would be like “uhh thanks” and then probably not use anything someone else bought me. Some students need particular items for skin sensitivity or their hair issues, and then there is just the matter of personal taste in smells.
If you really want to you can include bathroom items in your basket but I would check about any skin issues your student might have, or er on the side of caution and buy the hypoallergenic stuff. It’s not my thing, we told them already that there is bathroom items in there and we will show them when they get here so they know what they can use; which I think is the idea behind the bathroom gear in the basket.
The welcome basket should be personal to your family, your area, the school, and/or the student (depending on how much you know about them). Make it fun! Put some useful items in there and some snacks. Side note: we do have a rule of no food in their rooms (mice!), so we go over where they can keep their snacks after we present them their baskets in the kitchen. You can go all out or keep it simple, the point is to show you care and that they are now home.