Six Students Chosen for Sister City Program

For almost 40 years the Mountain View Sister City Affiliation has sent students to Iwata, Japan and Hasselt, Belgium.

In 2013, Mountain View will host five students from Iwata for two weeks and their American-counterparts hope to show them a good time when they arrive this summer. The local students—Ryan Hammell, Miki Sinclair, Daniela Turner, Heather Wilson and Forrest Wunderman—will visit for two weeks in 2014.

To do so, the Sister City program held a fundraising dinner on Friday, Mar. 1 that counted on the participation of former Mountain View resident Mike Inouye, current NBC Bay Area traffic reporter.

Inouye himself participated in 1986 and called the program, "invaluable." He felt that going to a different country with a group of students he didn't know showed him the value of taking risks.

"That was moment where I grew up a lot," Inouye said, a Mountain View High in 1987. Inouye shared that his grandparents were involved in the early years of the Sister City program—and his cousin went to Iwata in 2012.

According to Leslie Imai, vice president of the program, the number of students that participate from Mountain View depends on how many students can participate from Iwata. She explained that the city of Iwata pays for the students because Japanese culture doesn't fundraise like American families do.

It costs about $1,500 per students for airfare and incidentals.

The entire program, including the participation of the advisor Sheryl Sinclair, is run by volunteers.

"It's run by volunteers with a golden heart," Sinclair said. "They put a lot of energy into this."

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