Several years ago, when my daughter, Christie, was living with at home and in high school at River Hill, we hosted an exchange student from Madrid. She stayed with us for about six weeks and it was quite an experience for all of us.

Right now, there is an exchange student from Italy who is in desperate need of a host family in the Fulton/Highland area. His name is Francesco Cicciarella. He is a straight-A student and is attending Reservoir High School through the end of the 2008-2009 school year.

He played on the varsity soccer team and volunteers as a Latin tutor at Reservoir. The original host family was unable to provide a home for him for a full year and he has been staying with the Konstanzer family on an interim basis since early November. Due to other obligations, the Konstanzers are unable to offer their home for the remainder of the year. Colleen Kostanzer says "he's a great, easy-going kid and we're really hoping that we can find him a host family in the Reservoir district so he doesn't have to adjust to a new school in addition to a new family."

If you are interested (and I hope that someone is), call Colleen at 301-807-6380 or e-mail her at konstanzer@comcast.net.

Now that the holidays are behind us, you may be wondering what to do with the remains of the live Christmas tree that graced your home. You can help out the environment by turning it into mulch.

The Howard County government's Merry Mulch program takes your tree and delivers it to the Alpha Ridge Landfill where it is mulched and composted, thereby keeping it out of the landfill and turning it into something useful.

The only restrictions are that the trees must be free of decorations, lights, tree stand and any other foreign objects. There are two local spots where you can drop off your tree any time between 7:30 a.m. and 5 p.m.. The first is Schooley Mill Park on Hall Shop Road in Highland. The other is Kendall's Hardware store in Clarksville.

The recycling program lasts until Jan. 21. Of course, if you want to, you can take the tree to the wood-recycling drop-off area at the Alpha Ridge Landfill any day from 8 a.m until 4 p.m. The same restrictions apply.

Well, here we are, one week into the new year. I hope your holidays were good. Did you make any resolutions? I'm not big on that but I do have a goal for this year. My plan is to interview more residents, especially the long-time and life-long residents. They have a lot of "institutional knowledge" that we all may find very interesting.

That's all for this week. Look after your neighbors. Remember our troops who are serving in harm's way. And don't forget their families. Commit a random act of kindness.

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