Posted at: 11/02/2009 10:53 PM
By: Melanie Bloom

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Hormel Institute Mentorship Program

(ABC 6 NEWS) -- Living among us in southeast Minnesota, dozens of scientists, doing research at the Hormel Institute, in hopes of finding a cure for cancer.

They're from all over the globe.  Dropped in Austin, Minnesota without any knowledge about what life is like in the Midwest.  But, there's now a program to change that.

Doctor Yong Zhang is learning about life in America.  Things used to be very different more than 8,000 miles away in his hometown of Beijing, China.

"Here it is smaller and beautiful and it's a peaceful town.  In Beijing, it's a big city with lots of people and many activities," says Dr. Zhang.

Now, he's a researcher at the Hormel Institute.  The scientists that work here usually stay in the u.s. three to five years, helping find a cure for various forms of cancer.

They come from around the globe, places like China, South Korea, and India.

Yong sometimes works seven days a week, testing live cells, working towards a cure to prostate cancer.

That's why Yong signed up for the Hormel Institute Mentorship Program.  It pairs up scientists with people in our community, making them feel welcome, so they can learn about life in their adopted country.

Yong's mentor is Kathy Green.  Since he was paired up, he's basically been adopted into the green family.  She's lived here her whole life.

Yong attends the green kids' high school soccer games -- he even came over for a home cooked Thanksgiving meal. 

"We had an array of food from sushi to turkey to mashed potatoes and gravy.... We were even able explain that you have your turkey, your mashed potatoes, your stuffing, your gravy that you can pour over everything or nothing at all,” says Green.

The mentoring program has been in place for about a year.  In that time, it's gone from fewer than 10 scientists, to 30 today.

"They're very dedicated and hardworking wonderfully educated and are so interesting.  They bring to the Austin community this element of worldly experience because they've lived in a different country.  They have this level of education that is pretty incredible - most of them have their PHD's,” says Gail Dennison, from the Hormel Institute.

Other mentees like Yong live here, they shop here, and eat at our restaurants.

The hope is it'll get the scientists involved, get them out into the community, and making this place their home, even if only for a short time. 

But for people taking part in the program, it’s really more about friendship and learning.

"He’s just one of us when he's around.... Its nice to share the things we have going on and its nice answering questions and trying to answer questions and when questions are asked, it causes us to think and appreciate the things we have,” says Green.

The Hormel Institute is always looking for volunteers, interested in the mentorship program.  To find out, just more head to the links portion of our site.