For college students far from home, a Thanksgiving connection

UMass Boston created the hosting program about five years ago as enrollment grew and the director of student housing saw a need to help out-of-state and international students feel more at home.

"As a college student who lived and went to school away from home, I know that during Thanksgiving and holidays is really when you miss home the most," said Idil Abubakar, director of the college's Office of Student Housing.

Abubakar, a Somali by birth who was raised in Virginia and went to school at UMass Boston and UMass Amherst, has an unusual mission. The university has no dormitories, so her office helps students find off-campus apartments.

"Most universities have some kind of Thanksgiving program, but UMass Boston, because there's no residences, people just come and go," she said.

The program has provided Thanksgiving hosts for between 10 and 25 students each year since its inception. This year, only nine students participated. At a campus with nearly 15,000 students, about 5 percent of whom come from other states or countries, that's not exactly a broad subscription. But Abubakar said it's the depth of the connections that matter more than the number.

For many, the relationship doesn't end when the turkey is finished and the football games are over, she said..

"We have students, they return to same house next year, they return again and again, and then you have staff that naturally build this connection," Abubakar said.

Matching students with hosts isn't as easy as it would seem. Both the hosts and the students must submit applications, which are scrutinized by university staff for potential clashes, such as religious restrictions or allergies, not only to certain types of food but to pets that hosts may have in their homes.

For Huang, the fact that Weatherbee and her husband, Tim Dwinal, have a cat was a plus, and they corresponded about the cat, Abby, in their first e-mails to each other earlier this week.

"The first thing she asked me was 'Can I play with your cat?' " Weatherbee recalled shortly after Huang arrived today and asked after Abby.

Huang, who wants a career in finance, had brought a UMass classmate along with her, a 26-year-old from China named Shuai Wang, who wants to be a teacher. The pair, along with Weatherbee, her husband and a family friend dug into a veritable feast as they discussed winter festivals, ice-sculpting in China, and whether or not there are turkeys in Taiwan -- Wang thought no, while Huang thought yes.

Among their favorite parts of the meal, Huang and Wang said, was helping Weatherbee to prepare it. It's unclear if they were simply being polite, but both also claimed they had enjoyed their first ever brussel sprouts so much that they planned to cook them again in their off-campus apartments. "Yes, we'll cook them at home," Wang said with a audible note of sarcasm in her voice, laughing.

For her part, Weatherbee said she normally spends Thanksgiving with family in Maine but decided this year to spend the holiday at home.

"I've always wanted to have a Thanksgiving for people who don't have anywhere to go."

UMass Boston spokesman DeWayne Lehman said the school wants to build dormitories at some point in the future, but he said until then, the university is focused on building a home-like environment.

"It's programs like this that help make UMass Boston a student-centered university," he said. "Just because we don't have dorms, doesn't mean we dont want people to call UMass Boston home."

Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com.