 Courtney Michelle, and I am the Vice President of Longmont Sister Cities Association. And I would like to welcome you tonight to our annual meeting. Our bylaws dictate that we must have an annual meeting in the month of January. And so we use this opportunity to meet everybody and have some of the ambassadors introduce themselves. So I would like to say, Yoko Sou, Bienvenido, and Inna Dos. Welcome in the languages of our sister cities. Stick around, there's some business we have to take care of, and we're gonna have some trivia at the end. So a little bit of fun. And at the very end, we're gonna have a catered appetizer style food out in the hallway out there. So please stay. And on a more somber note, I would like to ask for a moment of silence for Ted Klein. He was the husband of Lee Klein, who was a past president of Sister Cities. And Ted was a great friend of LSEA. So if we would please take a moment to wish him on his way and wish Lee all the best. Okay, thank you very much. I would now like to introduce one of our elders, Sue Bolton. We have learned a lot from our new sister city, the Northern Rappahoe, that elders are our respected members of our group. And Sue is gonna tell us about the history of Sister Cities and listen, because one of the things she's gonna say is in the trivia tonight. I see a couple of other elders in the audience because Connie Forens and Jeannie Finley are also longtime members of Sister Cities board. It is, it's a good thing. But they also can correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, Sister Cities International got started because President Eisenhower, after World War II, felt that if ordinary citizens could get together with ordinary citizens of another country, they could do more to promote world peace than perhaps government leaders. And so that was one of the people-to-people organizations that came out of President Eisenhower's idea. So it started way back in the 1950s, but Longmont didn't get involved with Sister Cities until about 1990. And at that time, we had been through a recession. Several of the business and civic leaders in town wanted to start some kind of organizational friendship with another country and have a Sister City. And so Bill Hosokawa, who was a very prominent newspaper man and author, helped Mr. Kanemoto and other people from Longmont start a relationship with Gino Japan. The formal signing for that one was in 1990 with our mayor, just before you, Leona Fred Wilson. Fred Wilson was the mayor at that time. But then Leona Stacker was the next mayor, and she realized that we really needed to have a year-round organization to organize the activities and the homestays and all that kind of thing because the mayor of Gino at that time wanted to have a student exchange as part of the program. So in 1991, he sent a group of students over and Leona's, by the way, Leona stand up just a minute so they'll know who you are in case anybody doesn't know. Leona Stacker was our mayor at that time. Leona realized that it was too much for the staff. The first year, her staff had to hustle around and get home stay arrangements and activities and everything for the students who were coming and they found families who had teenagers in the family and they set up the activities and everything but she realized that that was really too much to ask of her staff in addition to all their other duties and that we needed a citizen's group to do it. When Bill Carlson moved back to Longmont where he had grown up, he had experience with sister cities in Arizona and he also wanted to get involved in the community so he went to Leona and said what can I do in the community and she said take over this sister cities organization so he was our first president. And after the students came here in 1991, then the following summer, the kids from those families got to go in the first trip over to Japan and I was one of the chaperones for that excursion which was very, very educational. So for the first few years it was every other year we would send them to Japan and they would come here the following year. But after Bill Carlson took over the organization, the board decided that we really wanted to do an exchange both ways every year so we started that in 95, might have been 92. Anyway, we soon also had people on our board who said we really need to have another sister city, one that has Spanish-speaking people because we have a large Mexican-American population here and we need to have better relationships going in that direction. So Dan Benavides who was, he had been a city councilman, he was also a businessman and did a lot of importing. He set us up with Tsuda Guzman and pretty soon we started having student exchanges going both ways every year. They would go, we'd send kids to Chino, eight kids to Chino, eight kids to Tsuda Guzman for a 10-day homestay and then after that they would come here for a 10-day homestay with the families and we had lots of activities. It's been going great up until the pandemic and that kind of made it difficult to have any kind of exchange. But we're so happy that now we think we're going to be able to resume our exchanges and we're glad to see all of you here to participate in that. Thank you. Thank you very much, Sue. I would like to now ask Sam Safi to come up and we will elect the executive board every year. My job is the shortest portion of this meeting but by the way, I'm very impressed with your attendance so thank you in this call. It shows your support for us. We worked throughout the year so thank you. Thank you for attending. Do we have candidates for president, vice president, secretary, one of the more difficult jobs and the financial advisor or bookkeeper slash treasure, many things. Any candidates from the floor? I have names. Okay, so I suggest we elect Janice Rebem as president, Courtney Michelle as vice president, Mike Seton as secretary and Patricio, and for now it's the last one. Janice as the treasurer. All those who are in favor, please show by your right hand. More importantly, any opposed by the same side. Very well, thank you. Thank you very much. And if anyone would be interested in joining our board meetings, becoming on the executive board or anything like that, please start attending our meetings which are the second Thursday of every month in the room just down the hall from here and they're open to the public. Next, we will elect the rest of the board and I would like to have everyone stand if you would. Sue Bolton, Cherie Safie, Sam Safie, Margaret Worth, Atsuko Muse, Dai Kato, Kale Hubert and Karen Bandy. And Kale and Karen are new to our board. Thank you very much for helping us out and committing to next year to helping us with the first full exchange, hopefully, since the pandemic. Thank you. And Sam, you have one more job to come back up here for just a little bit. We have a financial treasurer's report. Sam was treasurer for last year. And so get ready, Patrice, you're next year, you'll be doing this for us. So we had a, first of all, I have brought all the receipts, the checkbook. Okay, so we had the total income of $67,637 or that we, our total expenses were $59,000, so we made $8,000 last year, after all our expenses. On the balance sheet report, we have, because we haven't had exchanges, so we have some equity, we have $85,511 as cash sitting in our bank. That's the report, the details are written here. You're welcome to examine them. And thank you. Thank you, Sam. All right, now we're gonna give a little review of 2022, what we were able to accomplish, even with very only one exchange. So with Japan, we tried to keep in touch with them a lot, so we did virtual tea parties. We had, Margaret, was it two, three? Two or three? So because of the time difference, we would have to do, they would do early in the morning and we would do an evening. We would all get on Zoom with our cup of tea and have a conversation. The very first one, we played some games, there were a couple of teachers on that call and so they helped us with those kinds of things because there's a language barrier with Japan, of course, and a little bit, how do you do Zoom and all that kind of thing. So we had a fun time doing that and kept in touch and talked about that we hope we will be able to go this year. So those were great fun. For Mexico, it was our 25th anniversary last year and so that is 25 years of sending kids and receiving kids to and from Mexico and our sister city there is Ciudad Guzman and it is south of Guadalajara and so some of you will be heading there this summer. And Mayor Peck went on that visit, that was in August, with also some members of the sister city committee and I heard it was a great time. I missed it unfortunately, but it was a blowout bash party and lots of gifts came home with us. There's an art piece that is going to be hung somewhere in the library soon and they also did the official transfer of a brush truck that was gifted to Mexico on the 20th anniversary five years ago and it just takes a while to get things across the border. So and a lot of paperwork and money and all kinds of stuff like that has to happen to send something over the border. So that was driven down by Janice this spring and we have a new friend in, I believe he's in Minneapolis who is from Ciudad Guzman. He's a fireman in Minneapolis and he is helping us do these kinds of things and work on translation and equipment and stuff like that. So that arrived there and they are very thankful for it. It is already in use and the truck that we gifted them 15 years ago is still in use as well. They call it Garita, the little fighter and because Guzman has, as far as I know, maybe two fire hydrants. So in the US there are codes. You have to have a fire hydrant every so often so the fire trucks can reach it to put out a fire. Well, that is not the case in Mexico and so the fire truck that we or a pumper truck that we no longer needed is still in use there and doing good work and they have stickers all over it. They have our logo. They have the sister cities logo. They're very proud of it and then this year's city council also gifted another fire truck, a full-size fire truck to the city of Ciudad Guzman and that is fire truck number H, I believe is the name of that and it was involved in the 2013 floods and so it has a story. It was also before that, before Longmont had it, I think it was at the Indy 500 and so there was a video somewhere out there with that truck putting out a car fire after a wreck on that car race. So we are working now on when that will be going down there. So we're getting better at getting trucks across the border to Mexico and getting driven down all the way to Guzman. So we hope that will happen sometime this spring. We are also, we were visited by two Mexican firefighters who came up here to see the truck that we are going to give to them and they did some training with our firefighters as well and the first time they flew was from Guadalajara to Denver and then they got a special surprise where a city staff member, Marika Unger, took them up in her little plane at the airport and that was their second flight ever and so they got to fly around. They also got to see snow, be in snow for the first time. There is some snow visible sometimes from Guzman on the volcano out there and they made snow angels. So they had a really good time in the snow. One of them said he would love to come back and go skiing and the other one was like, all right, then we had our first full Arapaho exchange, the first bilateral exchange. So a couple of years ago, 2019, we had some of the Arapaho kids come down here for just a few days but we did not go up there. So this summer was our first time to have the bilateral exchange where we went up there for a week and then some of their kids came down here for a week. So it was very successful. I think everybody learned something. We'll hear from some of the kids who went on that trip in just a little bit and the documentary about our relationship with the Northern Arapaho was also released this year by a city-funded through the Longmont Public Media. And that was about 45 minutes and I believe there's a link on our Facebook page. And hopefully it's on our website as well. If you have some time, watch it, it's really moving. I don't think there was a dry eye in the Longmont Museum when it was shown and we had a full house watching it. We also had in November a couple of other films because of Native American Heritage Month. So we had some guests from our friends at the Northern Arapaho come down. So for the documentary, we had a panel discussion after that and that is also on a separate clip there and we showed True Grit, which is about a Northern Arapaho rider and they do Indian relay races. If you have never been to the Indian relay races, they do a circuit like the rodeo and they ride bareback on moving horses. I mean, they jump on these things, grab them by the main and go up there. Sue, Janice and I went in 2021 but there was a documentary done about a female rider who is from the Northern Arapaho and her story and that was very moving as well. And then Denver 7 News got really interested in our exchange and I'm gonna play a clip, it's about two and a half minutes of a news story that aired back in November about that. Jenny's in it and Aidan's in it and one of our Northern Arapaho students as well. So let's cue that up. In World War II, sister cities have brought cultures together worldwide. As Denver 7's Patrick Breyes shows us, one front rain city is focused on repairing a relationship right here at home. Culture is rooted in our DNA. Culture is something that can be connecting. It connects us with our past, helps us embrace the present and guides us toward the future. I feel like when you actually start to look at people's differences and embrace them for that, that's when we're really getting towards, you know, being culturally competent and really like a path towards equity. In 2021, the Northern Arapaho tribe from the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming became Longmont's third sister city. In doing so, it established the first sister city relationship between a sovereign tribal nation and a U.S. city. The word that I've always used for it, it's been friendship. The partnership allows eighth through 11th graders from Colorado to visit the reservation in Wyoming and for kids from the reservation to make their way down to Colorado. I think this relationship really was an attempt to start trying to correct those mistakes that my people made. That is where Aiden and Marley come into this story. They were all part of the first student exchange with the Northern Arapaho this past summer. It's important because some people that are like me that have never been around a different culture, it's important to not look at them any differently and be open to learning about them. Aiden is a freshman at Erie High School. He says his teacher encouraged him to join the program. Thinking about the reservation, what is like the first thing that comes to mind to you? It's probably like, oh, they're probably not too technical, technology advanced or stuff like that. They're just us. There is literally no difference between me and them. Aiden says this trip allowed him space to recognize the harm done to native people for generations. They're trying to get their culture back after centuries of it trying to be demolished. Marley is part of the Northern Arapaho tribe and lives on the Wind River Reservation. Following the week-long trip to Longmont, Marley and the teens from the reservation spent a week here in Colorado. We kind of toured through the city of Denver. One of my favorite parts of it was looking at these buildings that had graffiti on them. And then we just all walked through there and it was fun. We were looking at art. And we're all blinding really well. We all made friends very easily. Two weeks of cultural immersion revealed lessons these students will remember for a lifetime. Even though we spent two weeks together, we made a family out of it. It is part of our past that we did kind of get stripped of all of our culture and language. But as me now, I'm wanting to not take it out on everybody. Just by looking at their skin color, I wouldn't want to take it out on them. And has created a partnership aimed at bringing cultures together for years to come. Patrick Perez, number seven. I feel like that's a great idea, but there we go. Okay, we're back on. So that was pretty cool. We made Denver news. I mean, wow. And at our inaugural, at the September in 21 was the time that we came together. And the president of International Sister Cities came and talked to that. So when we first proposed this to Sister Cities International, they discouraged just a little from doing this. And we said, you know, we're gonna do it anyway. And we did it. So a lot of people tried it, had not succeeded and we did. So there are probably many reasons for that. Timing might be one of them, but we're making it happen. And our only goal is to be friends, just like Jenny said, and that a lot of people have ideas about what this could be and we're just out to make new friends. All right. So some of the other things we did last year, we attended a couple of festivals. We were at the first Longmont Juneteenth Festival. We had a great booth there and handed out stickers and magnets and got a lot of attention and tried to get some people interested in our program to know about it. So we also went to Rhythm on the River in July down at Rogers Grove. And that was a lot of fun. I think there was actually one of the MCs for some of the music there and we had a good time. Then we attended Unity in the Community, which is a city and chamber of commerce joint festival and had a booth there and also at Dia de los Muertos. So we hope to do more this year. And if you would like to help us, you don't have to join the board to help us out. We love our friends of LSEA. And so we have a lot of former members, we have a lot of people who can't commit to that monthly meeting and those subcommittees that we all have to do a lot of work for. And if you can't and you just wanna help us out, some of those festivals are a great way to do that because we need people to staff that and have people at the table, walking around, sending people to our table and to the people who know about all the details of our program and get the word out. All right, so 2023, we're looking forward to an exchange and so one thing there is the group we work with at the Northern Rappahoe is called 477 and that is their youth organization group and they have just texted us today asking about a blanket drive. So we still have not organized the details of that at all. If anyone is interested in helping us make that happen, gathering blankets for some of the students and families of our friends up there at the Wind River Reservation, please speak to me afterwards. I think it might also be a great project for some of the ambassadors, but I haven't talked to any of the chaperones about that. So that's just a be in your bonnet to let's do some good out there. All right, for several years we have been working on an art in public places project and Nicole has been helping a lot with that and that is finally coming to fruition this year. So we have, there has been a chosen piece of art. It's gonna be a gazebo like thing and it's going to be up at Macintosh Lake, Flanders Park on the north side. So from that is you're gonna be able to see Long's Peak in the mountains. So that is gonna commemorate our relationship with Ciudad Guzman and that will be installed sometime this summer and hopefully be there definitely will be able to have like a ribbon cutting at the exchange we hope. And so one thing coming up on January 31st from 5.30 to 6.30 p.m. at the museum, I believe will be a review of the color palette. So if any of the board members or other members of the community are interested in looking at that then you will need to RSVP. I'll send an email out to the board or try to put it on our Facebook page so that you could attend that. So unfortunately I don't have pictures of it but it's a really cool gazebo with seating. We wanted a gathering type place and one of the themes we have with Mexico is the butterfly because the butterflies migrate to and from and they transform as they do. And so we see our ambassadors transform as they go through this program. And so the gazebo is covered in cut out butterflies that then are placed on the outside of it. It's really beautiful and we hope all you will be there. I'll send out another invite through the MailChimp is what most of you all heard about this. So I'll send out an invite for when we do the unveiling of that. All right. On February 18th at 10 a.m. at the museum, Nyall Bior who is from Sudan but she's a teacher here. We'll be discussing her book, Changing Your Blues to Blue Skies. I believe it's a memoir about her immigration and migration on her trip to get over to the United States. So that's something of interest in February for Black Heritage Month. All right. Also not planned yet but happening sometime is a visit by the mayor of Ciudad Guzman. His name is Alejandro Baragán. We are still working on the dates for that. And so that'll be, he'll probably come with some other, a little bit of some friends. And so we'll have some events around that whether it will be at the exchange or at a separate time we don't yet. And then we hope to visit the Wind River Reservation with the board and members of city staff and city council. So that is in the works but not yet set as well in our plans. And then of course the exchanges with Mexico, Northern Rappahoe and Japan. Now we sent out a notice about Japan. They are not going to be sending students here this year unfortunately. But they have a meeting in two days on the 21st where they are going to try to get together and get a good convincing argument that they are gonna receive us. So we still do not know that for sure whether that will happen. So everybody keep your fingers crossed that they can convince that to happen. You know, there's multiple reasons why this is still going on and we don't need to go into those. So we hope that will happen and we're going to continue our planning with the thought that it's going to happen, all right? Okay, so now what I would like to do is ask any ambassadors from prior to 222. So any more, you know, not last year, we're gonna do that in a minute. Can you come up? Can you come up? Can you come up at anybody who's been on any exchange prior to last year? And I would like you to introduce yourself, tell us where you went and give us a little, you know, what was your best memory or experience that happened on the exchange? Yes, I'm going first. My name is Margaret Worth. I went to Chino, Japan in 2019 and what else am I supposed to say? Just my experience, basically, yeah. It was a life-changing experience. It was very wonderful. It really got me thinking about how, you know, as was just said in the little news clip that we're all the same, you know, even though Japan is so far away from the US, and culturally we're very different. We speak different languages and eat different foods, but we're all the same people deep down and that's the main takeaway that I got from that. And it's like, you can say that as much as you want, but you're never really gonna feel that until you experience it yourself. So I think that's the really special thing about going on these exchanges is getting to experience that and know that for yourself. And it was just really cool to see Japan. I love the culture. The food was delicious and my host family was awesome, so it was a great experience. And I'm grateful to Sister Cities and I've been on the board ever since. Hello, I'm Jordan Bagley. I went to Chino, Japan in 2018. Yeah, that sounds right, I think. And I was part of the group where the Arapa came down the first time before COVID. Kind of ruined that a little bit, but my experience in Chino was really good. Met a lot of good people, ate really good food, went cool places. I mean, it's Japan, it's pretty cool. But I don't know, going there, doing everything, just the things that we did was really fun. Those two days in Tokyo were really fun, but being with my host family and actually doing stuff with them that includes setting off fireworks at two in the morning was awesome. It was really cool. Apparently they sell those at their supermarket all the time. That's good to know. But it was really cool to do that and just hang out with everyone. And personally, I've gone up to the Wyoming a lot, and I've been up on the reservation quite a bit. I've talked to the Crawford and everyone, and they tell good stories. They make good food, and everyone's really nice, and we still talk to them all the time. So everyone's cool there. They're good people, and it's a good experience to have. I mean, they're our neighbors. Why not know them? This makes things better. Thank you very much. Thank you both. Thanks for coming tonight. All right, all of you who went last summer to the Wind River Reservation, could you please come up? Hey, everybody take a deep breath. All right, just say your name, where you go to school, and one memory, and you can talk a little more if you like. Tell us what you thought of the exchange. Hi, I'm Estella. I go to Niwot High School, and I did the Wind River Repo Exchange, and like, a memory for me was the powwow in going and just getting to experience their amazing culture, and seeing how they live, how it's different, how it's very similar, because again, like Aiden said, we're all human, and we all share the same experiences. I think that was really awesome. And bonding with everybody, creating a family together, I think that was pretty cool. My name is Alexander, I go to Schellen High School, and one of my favorite things from the Northern Appalachian Exchange was, one, the food, because it's really good. And two, was the Sundance. It was just like, it was an experience that you won't get anywhere else. It's just completely different, and it changes you. And yeah, what Estella said, I'd learn how similar we are, and what we have in, like, how we're different. Hi, my name's Natalie Heinze. I go to NYWAT, and everything Estella and Alex said was amazing, but I really liked all the car rides, because that's, I say this every time when people laugh, but that's where I got to know everybody. That's where I got to learn things about people, and we made a lot of memories on this bus, go to, or bad, the back of the seat, I'm looking. My name is Mauro, I go to Erie High School, and I think we would play like UNO, and make each other's hotel rooms, it was really fun. And I also liked meeting new people, and just trying their food, which was awesome. Hello, my name is Aiden. You already saw me up on the screen. I go to Erie High School, and probably a couple of my favorite things were definitely the food. I really wish the aunties would come down again, so they could make me more fry bread. I ate a lot up there for sure. Paolo was really fun for sure, and then I also got to meet a lot of new people in a lot of different ways that I didn't know I was gonna be able to experience in my life, so it was really cool. Thank you very much, and inaugural exchange, I mean, that's gonna be, this is the first, right? Okay, y'all can go ahead and sit down. Some of you are gonna come back up in a minute though, right? Okay, so how about who is going to Japan, chaperones and ambassadors? Can you please come up and introduce yourself? He's back, he's back, all right. All right, we'll start with you. Name, please, where you teach, where you go to school, and what you're looking forward to most? Hello everyone, my name is Francisco Sandoval. I'm a teacher at Scotland High School. It's, let's see, I was supposed to go to Mexico, and then COVID kinda messed that one up, so I'm super excited to be able to travel with students, to mix my two passions of traveling along with teaching. I don't know, I think it's gonna be a great time, so I'm super excited to be traveling with this group. I know we're missing a couple, but we are, I mean, I'm super excited. My name is Alexander, I go to Scotland High School. I'm a freshman, what I'm really looking forward to is I've never been on a plane before, so I'm excited for that. I hear the food is really good, and just overall going to a different country and meeting new people. That's one thing I really like is meeting new people, because they always have different perspectives, and there's, like, you can learn so much just from looking at the world through a different person's view. I'm Alexi, I also go to Longmont High School, and I'm excited to learn the differences of the cultures in a different way than just from an outside point of view, and actually being there and experiencing everything of what they do similarly and differently. Hi, I'm Katherine, and I go to Iowa High School, and one thing I'm looking forward to is going to a new country and sharing our cultures with each other, and also eating the food, because I've heard it's really delicious. Hi, I'm also Katherine. I'll be the second chaperone for the trip to Japan this summer. I'll echo what Francisco said. I'm very excited. I am most looking forward to the homestay and really getting to spend some time with a family locally, and like everybody else, the food is, I think, gonna be a lot of fun to experiment with, so I'm very excited. Okay, how about those who are going to Mexico? Please come up wherever it doesn't matter. It's okay. We'll have a chaperone start, though, yeah. Go Kingdom, yeah, yeah. Hey, everyone, I'm Cale Hubert. I teach English as a second language, primarily at Front Range Community College. I'm very excited and happy to be here, honored to be here. I guess I'm excited most to experience new things with a new set of friends and confidants, so. Thank you, my name's Sean O'Leary, and I am a sophomore at Iowa High School, and I'm probably most excited to stay at someone else's house and just like experience the way of life. Hola, me llamo Greta Stoch, y estoy un estudiante de segundo curso in Iowa High School. Hi, my name is Greta Stoch. I'm a sophomore in Iowa High School, and I'm most excited to meet my host family and spend time with someone and practice Spanish and try new things, experience a new place. Hi, I'm Kenna Kaminsky. I'm a sophomore at Longmont High School, and I'm really excited to experience a new culture and try new foods. Hi, I'm Laura Orner. I'm a junior at Longmont High School, and I'm excited to meet a lot of new people. Hi, again, I'm Natalie Heinze. I'm a freshman at Longmont, and I went high school. I'm looking forward to staying with the host family because I've never really stayed with different people. Hola, me llamo Harper Beamer. I'm a junior at Iowa High School, and I'm most excited to be immersed in the culture through the homestay. Hola, mi nombre es Miranda. Yo soy de Puerto Rico. No sé, no sé qué decir. Pero estoy bien nerviosa, pero también bien contenta porque es algo nuevo. Hi, my name is Miranda. I'm from Puerto Rico. I don't really have much to say. I am a little bit nervous, but I am super excited to learn about a different country and different cultures. I already have two cultures in my system, so it's so nice to always learn more. Hi, guys. My name is Aiden Magna Grull. I'm a freshman at Erie High School, and I'm honestly, once again, really excited about the food because you already know. It's going to be a real good update. And then I'm really excited to be able to, just experience what it's going to be like to live down there. It'll be my first time going international, so I'm really excited for that. Hi, everyone. I'm Rachel. I'm the other chaperone for the trip. I work for the city of Longmont. I do communications and help facilitate things like this with the news channels. Not this one in particular, but... I'm excited. I've been to other parts of Mexico before, but never Jalisco, never Guadalajara area, so to see how those are different and the food. And I think Miranda, everyone would be lying if they said they weren't a little nervous, so you're good. Thank you, Mexico 23. Go ahead and sit back down. All right, and those who are going up to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, please come up. And I'll be a chaperone this year. Both of my daughters, I have two daughters, 18 and 20, both of them have done the exchange to Mexico and Japan, and it was absolutely wonderful for them. So if you have any questions, what it's like to go or for students to stay in your home, come and see me afterwards. And I think I learned a different or an interesting perspective because I was an exchange student about 30 something years ago, and I stayed in the Netherlands for 10 months with Rotary. And I was telling the students at our first meeting, it was a very unique exchange to kind of get your head around because there wasn't computers and there wasn't cell phones. So it was a lot of snail mail writing. So I'm looking forward to seeing this group change and grow. Hello everybody, my name is Jenny Diaz-Leon. I am a community coordinator for the city of Longmont's Children, Youth and Family Division, so the Longmont Youth Center. I'm so excited to be part of this again. I have been participating with sister cities. I think since 2017, I was supposed to go on a trip to Mexico along with Patricio and the rest of the crew, but I wasn't able to because I was in the process of getting my citizenship. But then the year after, I was very excited to get involved with the Northern Arapaho exchange, connecting with the people. And like I said in the video, making friendships is the very first piece of that. And then that transforms into family. So I'm very excited to see this new cohort of students traveling. And if I could share my favorite memory from the trip last year, it was connecting with the students and hearing the reflections about the different experiences that they were having. So I look forward to having those moments with you all as well. Thank you. Hi, I'm Henry Stoch. I'm a senior at Nahuat High School. And I really look forward to seeing a culture that I've kind of lived close to my whole life, but I've never experienced. So I'm excited for that. Richie, I'm a junior at Longmont High School. I'm most excited to meet new people and see a new culture. I'm Molly Riddle. I'm a sophomore at Silver Creek. And I'm excited to experience a new culture and see all these new perspectives, as everyone's mentioned. Hi, my name is Taryn McDermid, and I am a junior at Nahuat High School. And basically like everyone said, I'm really just excited to meet all of these new people and kind of experience this culture that again, I've lived next to my whole life. I know my family has lived next to for a long, long time, but I've just never been able to see or appreciate and so I'm really excited to be able to have that opportunity. Hi, my name is, oh, sorry. Paloma Delgado. And I'm probably most excited to be an exchange student. I have an exchange student myself and it seemed really fun. My name's Hailey Donahue. I'm a freshman at Silver Creek. I think I'm really excited to learn about the culture because I've visited a lot of places or even lived in places that have a different culture. And I've never got to really learn about different cultures in America, really only in foreign countries. So I'm super excited for that. Hello, my name's Sayara Kyleback. I'm a freshman at Silver Creek High School and I'm most excited for learning about culture too and meeting new people, especially the host family as well as eating delicious food. Hi, I'm Bridget Dermotty. I'm a freshman at Silver Creek High School again. And I'm most excited for traveling and art, seeing all the art. Hi, my name's Patricio Riannis. Patricio Riannis, I am a teacher over at Erie Middle School. And I also work for an organization called Together. They used to be called the Tension Homes. I've been doing that for about 10 years or the Youth Homeless Runaway Shelter. And you know, as I reflect on this time with Northern Arapaho and our relationship, I'm reminded of the first time our executive director at Together said, hey, you know, we really want to build a housing first project for homeless youth in Boulder, Colorado, that will go up downtown and will be there for years and years to come. It actually, on the contract, it said, for 100 years, it is only gonna be used to house homeless youth. And I was part of a group of people that really fought hard for that when we're in front of places like this speaking to it. And when we finally accomplished it, I've seen that brick and mortar there. I've stood in there. I have known many youth that have been housed and are housed in there. It just felt so good to see something come to fruition that was so much bigger than yourself and to be a part of something that was so much bigger than yourself. And as I connect that with Sister Cities and the group of people up here, the group of people in attendance that are really trying to build this new relationship, it's been so nice to be a part of something that's so much greater than what you are and something that'll last longer than when we get old and when we are beyond what we're doing in our lives. That there'll still be folks getting to share this beautiful relationship, this beautiful friendship. Thank you very much. Oh, everybody's so excited to go. I mean, what an experience. I myself was a Rotary Exchange student like Karen to Norway in 1990 and it changed my life. It changed what I decided to study at school. It changed the trajectory of almost everything that I experienced and I have a really good friend there. I'm the godmother of two of her children and her oldest who is 30 this year is having her baby and I'm gonna go to the baptism in August or September. So there's generations come from these kinds of things and I've also found these are short trips as an exchange but when I was first a chaperone in 2007, two or three of the ambassadors that went on my trip to Mexico went on to do a year study abroad because it helps you know you can do it, right? Like it might be scary, you might be nervous if you haven't traveled a lot and it shows you that everybody we are all the same and there's just the differences or this little bitty bit and those are the gems that make it make everything really, really fun. Alrighty, so on the back table where Leona is sitting, there is a, I put up about 20 pieces of paper and it's for the Ray Anderton Memorial Scholarship. Ray was a board member with us and when he passed his wife wanted to set up a scholarship to help kids who might need a little help with their travel expenses. As we know Japan, that plane ticket could be quite pricey. So this scholarship is used to help with your travel. It will be a judged competition. There will be five winners and the entries are due on March 31st. All this is on that flyer. So pick one up on the way out. The amount will be $500 or the cost of transportation if it turns out to be less than $500 and all that will go towards your travel. The theme is hidden gems of Longmont. That can be a photo project, a video, an essay, a dance or any other creative idea. So come up with something fun. You must send it to lscaorg at gmail.com by the entry date, which is March 31st. And if it's not possible to send it, if it's a performance for example, then you just need to describe it and send it to that email address, okay? And then we will have the judging happen in April and the winners will be announced. So pick up a piece of paper right at that back table. Leona has them, Bernie, right there, they're right up there. Pick one of those up. Everybody get creative and get some money to help you with your travel. Okay, I said at the beginning we do a little trivia. Were you paying attention to Masu gave her speech because some of it's gonna be in here. And you know, we've never done this before. We just thought we'd do something fun. So just yell out or if it gets a little crazy, I'll have you raise your hands, but we'll see. Okay, so first one is, what do all of our sister cities have in common? All right, good food, she said. Now I knew there would be multiple answers to this. I only have two really, but anything else? Mountains, they all have mountains, yes they do. Now, do you consider a volcano a mountain? I think so, so in Chino, I mean, in Cedar Guzman, out from the over the lake across the city, you can see the Colima volcano. And so they have a mountain too. Anything else? What else do they have in common? Well, possibly, I don't know about that. There could be more, so with the mountains, what else is there usually when there's mountains around? They're at elevation. So I got some facts for you here for trivia. I won't make you guess the numbers. So Chino is the lowest at 801 meters, which is 2628 feet, and their city hall is the highest city hall location in Japan. I didn't know that, learned that today when I was putting together my list of trivia. Okay, Cedar Guzman is 1,507 meters, which is 4,944 feet. The Wind River, now I don't know where on the Wind River they are because that's a big place, but Wikipedia says that they are 1,762 meters, which is 5781, but if you include some of the mountains that are probably on the reservation, they're probably the highest, and they are anyway. So in Longmont, of course, we are at 1519 meters, which is 4,984 feet. So we're all at elevations, we all can see some mountains from town. All right, next question. What is the difference between Arapahoe with an E and Arapahoe without an E? Close, very close, yep. So, more general, maybe. I had to ask, I asked them myself, I was like, I see it spelled different ways. So with the E is the place, and without the E is the people. So when you see Arapahoe Road, Arapahoe County, Arapahoe, everything that's named around here for them, it's usually with an E, but the people don't have an E. All right, and here's some from, if you were paying attention, you might win prizes I don't have to give out. What former businessman and city council member was responsible for introducing us to Ciudad Guzmán? Dan Benavida is very good. Now they might have cheated because they knew from before they paid attention. All right, which former US president stated to, started the people to people movement resulting in the formation of Sister Cities International? We have a hand, okay, we'll try that. Eisenhower, very good. And which former Longmont mayor encouraged the formation of a citizen group called Longmont Sister Cities Association in 1995. Oh, and she's here with us. She's, thank you very much for playing. All right, we are a little ahead of schedule and we are gonna have some food, but they are hopefully arriving soon and gonna set up. So what I would like to do is have parents stick around in this room with the chaperones maybe, and talk about fundraising ideas. Does anyone wanna help? You wanna share some that we've done before? Anyone wanna come up and share some fundraising ideas? Because what we do is, you know, you have to pay for the tickets, the plane tickets, right, to go to these places and then a little spending money. So the parents help organize the fundraising events. So you wanna share? Yeah, come on up. Just because we are live streaming by the way and they can only see up here. So in the exchange that I did get to go to before the reservation was to Japan and our cohort organized a fundraiser at Fuzzy's Tacos and what they did is they had a dessert that they would be able to go around and offer to the tables. All of the money that was raised through that was given to the group. So it was wonderful. It was a really good way of bonding and getting to know each other and our leadership styles as well. And it was a great way to get our sister cities community together to be able to support these kinds of programs. I remember that one cookies. The cookies were really good. Anyone else have some ideas they wanna share or thoughts we've done before? Sam, you get one more job. Come up here and tell a little bit about that. We did car wash for several years and it worked very well. We sold tickets for $10 and we didn't pay the car wash people any because they gave us the car wash for free. So that we made a couple thousand dollars that one day. The restaurants where they pay you 5%, 10% of the revenue at the end of the evening has not worked out. I remember being cold on Main Street for hours and hours and 10 people showed up and I did all the hours. So don't do that. One thing I can put a plug for sister cities association and that is King's Super you can choose when you get their cards, if you have their cards then the 5% of the profit goes toward or a portion of the profit, I don't know exactly what percentage, but the portion of it goes to the people that you choose. They have a list of 200 non-profits and one of them is sister cities. So if you do grocery anyway, you might as well choose sister cities. So a portion of what you buy, the points that you get, the portion of it, you get your points that you also contribute to sister cities and let me put my glasses on and I'll tell you how much we made last year out of that. Just from the board alone. That means my wife buys a lot. Gift card, $322. So just the board alone, we made some money. Again, it doesn't go, it's not for your trip, but it's good for sister cities. Where's Sherry? Sherry, are you here? Any other ideas? And former. Thank you. Yeah, we did Pizza Palace Fundraisers and it was through Old Chicago. We don't have an Old Chicago here anymore but you can still use those gift cards. You'd have to go to an Old Chicago and get it but it's a $10 gift card and I think we paid $5 for each of them and then it's worth a $25 pizza and they can be used anywhere around the country and they don't expire. So I was a shop around in 2016 and I stockpiled them and I literally just used my last Old Chicago gift card like a month ago. So they don't expire. Just so we're, you know, everybody can hear you. We got a token in the mic so because we have, we might have our friends from Japan. I sent it to them. Our friends from the Northern Arapaho and Mexico and some other Long Island people who couldn't make it are watching us live right now. Don't be nervous. I'm a little nervous. Mainly because my high school daughter is sitting here and she's like, yeah, exactly. My name's Michael Beamer. I own Aspen Mental Health Group but that's my domestic job. My overseas job is I'm a member of Disaster Zones and I've been doing that for 20 years and the question I get asked the most whether it's a student, like an intern or it's a doctor or nurse with doctors beyond borders is how do we raise money? And so when you said that I was like, well maybe I should say something. Your biggest fans are gonna be your friends and family. People that typically live around you and have grown up or watched you grow up and grow up. And so one of the things that people have said over the years that they're really successful is tell them what you wanna learn. Create like a bullet point list and actually talk to them directly. Not social media, not texting. Text to coordinate a meeting, have coffee with them and say this is what I'm looking for. I'm looking for five people to cover this specific amount and add about 15 or 20% to it if you think there's gonna be things that are unforeseen costs just in case. And then when you're over, I've been to Japan, I've been to Mexico. You can still anywhere in the world get postcards very, very cheap. Get a postcard. Say thank you and tell them a little bit about your trip. The follow-up is actually more important to the fundraising than the introduction because that way they're included. And this way, the first time I went overseas was with People to People International. I was 15 years old and a freshman. And back then you spent three months and I was in Russia and the Ukraine. And I remember, I forgot all about the postcards because how long people have been doing this. And I rushed and got a bunch for like three cents apiece. But still I'm in touch with people that supported me when I was 15 and now I'm not. And so 20 years later, that one trip that Russia has allowed me to continue to meet. You're off to a great start. Thank you, thank you very much. All right, that's a great idea. Do you wanna come up and tell us something? Some ideas? Come on up. Like your sweatshirt or dinosaurs. Hi, my name's Hailey Donahue. An idea I've seen is called a calendar buyout. So kids, basically every kid gets to choose their own month or like a month. It can be the same month as someone else. And you send it to your family and friends or you post it on social media and you ask for someone to sponsor one month, one day of the month. So if someone chooses, hey, I'm gonna sponsor day one. They donate one dollar and it goes on. So every day of the month, so like if you choose a month that has 31 days, if someone sponsors day 31 they're gonna pay you 31 dollars. And so kids can choose their own month. They can choose a month that's special to them or you could choose a month. You're going in like July and you send it to your family and friends and you see how much money you can fundraise and how many people you can get. But every person can only sponsor one day. So if you have someone who's like, hey, I wanna sponsor day seven and someone else is already sponsoring day seven, they can choose a different day or they can double up on the day. Some new stuff we haven't heard before. Anyone else wanna share? Picture grandma says Sam. That's always a good option. All right, looks like the food is being set up out there. So if parents do wanna discuss some of those ideas together, please stay in here a little bit or why don't you just hang out a minute. Let me go check on all that. Start mingling among yourselves if you like and I'll see when we're ready to eat. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you for attending. Thank you for supporting our program and we'll catch up. And if you have any questions for any of the board members, just let us know.