VIRGINIA BEACH — University students from around the world come to Virginia Beach every summer to work and engage in American culture with a State Department J-1 Exchange Visitor Visa.
To prepare for their arrival, a community service group is taking steps to help improve students’ experience while they live and work in Virginia Beach for several months. It’s comprised of representatives of the hotel and restaurant associations as well as public safety and city officials and organizers of a weekly dinner program and bike ministry held at Virginia Beach Community Chapel on Laskin Road.
The group is planning a community forum for interested businesses, sponsors and donors at the end of March and orientation events when the first wave of student workers arrive in May.
Mark Stevens, owner of Zero’s Subs Oceanfront, and former Second Police Precinct Capt. Mike Ronan reconvened the community service group, which had been on hiatus since the pandemic, to expand and better coordinate resources before students’ arrival.
“We want to be a good host city and really bring everybody together,” Stevens said.
Student interest
In 2024, the number of international students who visited the U.S. to work during the summer had nearly reached the same level as before the pandemic at more than 100,000, according to the State Department. Of those, 4,830 came to Virginia. Data from 2025 is not yet publicly available.
The J-1 visa is a non-immigrant program that has mostly not been affected by stricter immigration rules under the Trump administration. At the end of May, there was a brief pause in J-1 visa interviews when the state department updated its vetting procedures, focusing on social media screening for applicants.
That level of scrutiny hasn’t stopped students from applying for the work and travel program this year, according to Wendie Mewszel, senior program coordinator for Cultural Homestay International, a J-1 visa sponsor organization. Rather, she said the challenge in some cities has been finding employers to hire them.
“We’re not hurting for students,” she said at the community service group’s first meeting Thursday. “It’s more of the employers still trying to get business.”
How sponsorship works
In Virginia Beach, hotels, restaurants and retail shops in the resort area rely on the extra help during the busy summer season. More than a dozen J-1 sponsor organizations place students in Virginia Beach. They connect them with host employers and approve their housing arrangements before they arrive.
Gold Key|PHR, which operates The Cavalier, employed about 80 last year. Some students take on second jobs to make extra money. At the end of their stay, they can travel the U.S.
Tim Ritter, owner of Family Fun Xperience Theatre on 16th Street, has supported a couple of international student workers for general cleaning and concession positions. This year, he hopes to also find students who have an interest in acting.
“If I can involve them in the theater part of it, I can pull in several,” he said.
Sunsations Realty in Virginia Beach has offered 19 Atlantic Hotel to students and was pursuing plans in 2024 to build dormitory-style housing on 25th Street. The project was delayed due to permitting and is scheduled to open in 2027, according to a spokesperson for the owner. Coastal Hospitality, which owns several hotels in Virginia Beach and the Outer Banks, bought townhomes to house J-1 visa students near their properties.
Sponsors also provide students with access to discounted insurance and ensure they can be sheltered or evacuated from an area in the case of an emergency, including a hurricane. In the Outer Banks and Ocean City, Maryland, students have been bused by their sponsors to safer locations during severe storms, said Jenn Yildiz, regional account manager for Intrax, a sponsor organization.
Sponsors also provide students with copies of the State Department’s Certificate of Eligibility for Exchange Visitor (J-1) Status, or DS219 form, which contains sponsor details and program start and end dates. Cultural Homestay International also issues identification cards that students can carry in their wallets.
“If something happened, and somebody was like, ‘Hey who are you, and what are you doing here?,’ they would have that among the other documents,” Mewszel said.
At the meeting, Ronan asked sponsors to provide a sample of the form that could be provided to Virginia Beach public safety officials.
“That would be helpful,” Ronan said. “If it’s presented to an officer in just a conversation, they know what to look for and everything else, especially officers working the Oceanfront or other parts of the city.”
Additional assistance
VBJ1 Cafe provides transportation to weekly dinners between June and August at Virginia Beach Community Chapel so student workers can socialize and meet new people, said Jarod Puffenbarger, associate pastor of outreach.
“We’re here to create a web of connection that really creates a support net for the students as we interact with them in the community,” he said.
Church volunteers offer bike repair, English training and Bible study. The cafe program needs dinner sponsors and items for goodie bags.
Local employers, landlords, safety and religious organizations who want to learn more about the program can attend a community forum 10 a.m. to noon March 31.
For more information about the forum, email Jenn Yildiz at jyildiz@intraxinc.com.
Stacy Parker, 757-222-5125, stacy.parker@pilotonline.com
