Help me fill the first cup and launch Chai Abroad Foundation for Education, a global effort to support international students.

In Pakistan, chai is synonymous with welcome, as every welcome begins with a cup of tea. As soon as you enter a home, someone puts the kettle on, breaks out the good china, and before anyone asks what brought you, you are already family. This past fall, I experienced this first hand in homes across Pakistan, from Lahore to Gilgit.

I’ve also seen what it’s like for students in my own community of Oshkosh, Wisconsin who leave that warmth behind. Young people from Pakistan cross oceans to study in Wisconsin, Korea, Malaysia, and around the world with dreams of creating opportunities for a better life, too often at the personal expense of losing touch with their culture, their family, and their home.

This November, my birthday month, I want to change that. I’ve founded Chai Abroad Foundation for Education (CAFE), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that supports Pakistani students studying abroad and helps them find their home away from home. We provide mentoring and scholarships to international students of Pakistan and strengthen local communities where they land through cultural exchange, because welcome grows stronger when whole neighborhoods share in the experience.

Instead of birthday gifts, I’m asking you to help me pour the Foundation of my nonprofit by helping me fill the first cup.

Our goal is $3,000 by Giving Tuesday, December 1. Whatever we raise will be shared evenly between two purposes. Half will open our doors to enable us to begin the work of strengthening communities through cultural exchange. Half will become scholarships for Pakistani students studying abroad, awarded through an application process.

A gift of any size matters, and $500 funds one full scholarship. Plans are in motion to announce and celebrate the inaugural scholarship(s) in the spring of 2027, and I hope that you will join us there.

In the photo above, the young man sitting beside me is Habib, a good friend of my son-in-law, a UW Oshkosh student, and a founding member of CAFE’s board of directors. He knows what it means to land far from home and find people who make room at the table. That feeling is what we hope to give every student we serve.

Sitting next to Habib is me, of course. I have to confess that welcoming a new son-in-law into my family, welcoming his friends into my home, and welcoming Pakistan, its language, and culture into my heart has been transformational. That feeling is what I hope to give each person who helps open doors for the students who land at our doorstep.

I’ll personally send a thank-you letter to every donor, and share updates as the Foundation grows. If giving isn’t possible right now, sharing this page with a friend is a gift too.

Thank you for sitting at this table with me.

With love and gratitude,

Holly Selwitschka

Founder, Chai Abroad Foundation for Education

-where chai warms the heart, welcome transforms-