Foreign exchange families feeling the impact of the pandemic

Foreign exchange families and students across the country were shaken up when, last minute, many programs decided to send their students back to their home country.

One family in Washington, IN tells their story.

While many while many families are forced to stay in the house together-- one wabash valley family was broken up.

News 10's sarah lehman is live now in our newsroom.

She has more on how this pandemic is causing problems for foreign exchange students and their families.

The colvins have been housing foreign exchange students for the past seven years.

But this year -- their student from denmark was sent home almost 4 months early because of the covid- 19 pandemic.

"devastated.

Yeah, horrible.

Very devastated."

Richie and shawn colvin and their foreign exchange student alex veien (vine) are describing what happened to them and many other families across the country.

"very abruptly about a week and a half ago we got an email stating that they were suspending the entire exchange student program and sending all the kids back to their home country's" another impact of the covid 19 pandemic.

"with everything going on in the world right now in our household we were trying to find some positive uplifiting and you know we were looking forward to the spring getting alex ready for his first prom.

He was actually going to participate in his local high school graduation this year and with the covid-19 taking a sweep across indiana it just ruined all of that."

For veien not only did he have to leave his exhange family... he also had to say good bye to friends he had made and to all of the memories he could have made.

"it was just so sureal to you know i met with some of my friends in the park when we kind of knew when we'd gotten the email and it was surreal that that was probably the last time i would see their faces for a long long time."

And for the colvins... "when we bring these children into our homes they're not just exchange students to us, they're our family.

/// and for us it is like having one of your children taken away."

I did call a few exchange student programs today -- they were not immediately able to tell me if they would continue the programs this coming july.

Reporting live in the newsroom sarah lehman news 10 back to you.