All Have a Home at  PVCC’s International Club 

The International Club at PVCC is a student-led social club with over a dozen countries represented. There are around 20 active members who meet once a month on Wednesdays in room M174. The next and final meeting of this semester will be on Nov. 20, at 1 p.m. At a usual club meeting there is food, discussion of upcoming events, presentations by students about their countries, and sometimes even fun trivia games. 

 Irina Liskey, professor of mathematics, is the faculty adviser for the International Club. She says her goals for this club and its members stretch far beyond just socializing. Liskey, an immigrant from the country of Georgia herself, said that she got involved in the International Club her very first year at PVCC. Liskey said that as an immigrant, she understands many of the struggles that students who have recently immigrated go through, and she wants to be a resource to help them find their footing at PVCC “…it’s mostly [a] social club, but we also try to help them get accustomed to this culture to see what we can help them with,” she said.

Aside from their monthly meetings, the International Club also has regular extra activities for members. This includes hiking trips, movie nights, potlucks, cookouts, and even trips to amusement parks. Liskey said that her main goals for the club, its members, and especially its officers, (of which there are five) is to help facilitate leadership, creativity, connection, and community within the club. 

This community building does not stop at the club level. On Tuesday, Nov. 12, the International Club had an international food sale in the Main Building Event Space. A dozen club members signed up to bring food from their respective countries for anyone to buy. The money from all the food sales goes to the International Club. 

Liskey said that while some of the money goes to the club’s activities, last year, the club members decided to use half of the collected money to buy sandwich supplies in order to hand out sandwiches to the homeless in Charlottesville. She expects something of a similar nature to be done with half the money this year. Liskey says that overall, she tries to make the International Club a place for people to connect and learn good life skills. “Students are having [a] hard time connecting with other students,” she said. “I try to kind of push them to get outside of their comfort zone, and try to meet new people.”