A Cowboy Dave's Marketing Solutions service
Boots-on-the-ground support for international student agencies in Southern Alberta. We don't replace the system. We strengthen it.
About us
My life has been built around people, relationships, communication, hospitality, and showing up when people need you. Auctioneer since 1980, sales professional since 1976, former rodeo cowboy, and retired guide and outfitter.
Over the last three years, my wife and I have welcomed 10 international students into our home as homestay parents, and that taught me students don't just need a place to stay. They need someone they trust. My approach is simple: show up, listen, care, communicate, and follow through.
Practical support. Personal contact.
Support can be structured around the agency's needs and the student's stay: 30 days, 90 days, a semester or a full year.
Regular face-to-face visits, conversations and relationship building.
Personal contact in the educational environment and early awareness of concerns.
Communication, relationship building and additional support.
Encouragement, guidance, listening and practical local perspective.
Helping students communicate concerns through appropriate channels.
Listening to families because strong families are valuable program partners.
Updates, observations, concerns, positive news and follow-up.
Transportation support at the agreed rate.
Out-of-town travel, emergency support and special assignments by agreement.
By the numbers
A working capacity that protects the personal, quality-first nature of the service.
Welcomed into our own home as homestay parents over the last three years.
Decades of relationships, communication and showing up when people need you.
The role
We fill gaps. We don't replace the agency, school, school division or homestay family. We add relationship-based support and help the people already responsible find workable solutions.
A trusted local adult, mentor, and relationship builder: a familiar face for students, an advocate for both the student and the homestay family, and the agency's eyes and ears on the ground.
Not a recruiter, not a placement agency, not a school administrator, and not a replacement for a homestay coordinator, school, or school division. We're not here to undermine existing roles or to point fingers.
Core philosophy
The objective is not to find somebody to blame. It is to understand what is happening, protect the student, support the homestay relationship, communicate with the agency, and help the people already responsible find a workable solution.
Safety and wellbeing are never secondary. Genuine safety concerns must be addressed through appropriate channels.
When safe and appropriate, we understand and repair problems rather than automatically replacing a valuable homestay family. If a move is necessary, the student can be moved while the broader relationship is handled respectfully.
On the ground
The country, the horses, the hat, and the students who've called it home.
What it costs
Every agency runs differently, so the rate is worked out with you rather than published here. What follows is how the money side works, so there are no surprises in it.
How many students, how far apart they live, how much visiting and driving each one needs: all of it changes the number. So we agree it together, in writing, before a single student is placed.
A flat monthly amount for each student in my care, invoiced in euros. No call-out fees, no hourly surprises, and no charge for the phone call at ten at night.
Thirty students at a time, across the ten months of the school year. That ceiling is the point: past it this stops being personal, and personal is what you are paying for.
Your eyes. Your ears. Your trusted local connection.
If you represent international students in Canada and want a trusted local connection on the ground, I'd like to hear from you. Tell me how many students you place in Southern Alberta and I'll come back with a rate for your agency.
Serving Lethbridge and Southern Alberta, with growth toward Medicine Hat and Southeastern British Columbia.
(403) 849-0962
Grandpaontheground@gmail.com
