Sausalito Sakaide Sister City is now in its 29th year!! And what an amazing opportunity we provide for young people in Marin County!

We are pleased to announce that on July 28th 2017 we are sending a delegation of high school students from Marin County to represent our Sausalito Sakaide Sister City Program in Sakaide, Japan for 10 days. Accompanying the student delegation from our City Council will be our Mayor, Ray Withy and 3 other adult representatives/chaperones. We are looking forward to seeing Mayor Aya and our friends from the City of Sakaide again.

We had an overwhelming response to this year’s recruitment for student delegates. Our program is gaining in strength, and popularity, and it has become very prestigious. Unfortunately we were unable to offer this opportunity to all our applicants. We had more applicants than slots available. We hope those who did not make this year’s cut will be hosts in 2018 and /or apply again to go in 2019.

In early spring we began receiving applications from potential delegates; April was spent interviewing each applicant, checking references and making our selection; June and July we held two orientation meetings to prepare our selected delegates and their families for the trip to Sakaide. We explained the cultural differences, the expectations as a visitor in a Japanese home, some understanding of the City to City relationship, learned some Japanese words and particularly how best to use chopsticks!

We are very pleased to have so many volunteers involved in our Operations Council. These dedicated supporters have worked very hard this spring and summer to make sure that our selected delegates are exemplary representatives for Marin County, California and the United States.

We cordially invite you, our community, to join us for a presentation by our 2017 student delegates about their experiences in Japan sometime in August or September. Please look for the date of this presentation in the Fall issue of this magazine. We are looking forward to hearing about their adventures, lessons learned, and stories of their new Japanese family and friends.

Photos are from the 2015 Delegation visit.