Moses Lake students prepare to head to Japan

MOSES LAKE — Three Moses Lake students will head to Japan this month as part of the Moses Lake-Yonezawa Sister City Exchange. 

“A lot of people don’t realize that this cultural exchange has been going on for 45 years,” said Moses Lake-Yonezawa Sister City Exchange Program Treasurer Terry Moore. “Everybody knows Yonezawa Boulevard (in Moses Lake), but do they know why it’s called Yonezawa Boulevard? It’s because of the sister city program.” 

Paisley Ashton, Abbi Towne and Donovan Johnson are scheduled to fly to Yonezawa, Japan, on July 25 and come back Aug. 4, according to an announcement from the sister city exchange program. A fourth student, Jenna Baker, is designated as an alternate in case one of the other three can’t go. 

The American students will spend 10 days in Yonezawa, doing things like visiting a temple, climbing Mount Nishi-Azuma, learning to make noodles and riding a bullet train. Then Aug. 7-16, three students from Yonezawa will make the same trip to Moses Lake, visiting the city hall and police department and experiencing the Grant County Fair and Moses Lake Roundup Rodeo.  

The students will stay with one another’s families during the exchange, Moore explained, so they learn about each other’s culture from the inside and form friendships as well. 

“We’re still in contact with the girl who stayed with us in 2002,” she said. “I get pictures of her babies all the time.” 

The sister city program pays all the expenses for the student exchange, including airfare and activities. In the past that’s been done through a fundraising auction, but it wasn’t feasible this year, according to a letter from Moses Lake-Yonezawa Sister City Exchange Program President Amador Castro. Instead, the students have held their own fundraisers, Moore said. 

“This year they did a popcorn sale,” Moore said. “They just had a fundraiser at Aim Gymnastics, a parents’ night out, where people dropped their kids off (for babysitting).” 

More fundraisers are planned, Moore said, and donations can be made online. The program is open to Moses Lake students in grades 9-11. Applications for next year’s exchange will open in the fall. 

Moses Lake and Yonezawa have one of the longest-running sister city relationships in Washington, dating back to 1978, according to the program’s website. The student exchange was established in 1981 between the Moses Lake-Yonezawa Exchange Program and the publisher of the Yonezawa Shinbun newspaper, but like so many things, it was shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Soon after, the publisher of the newspaper passed away, leaving nobody to coordinate the exchange from the Japanese end for several years. That job was taken up last year by the Yonezawa International Relations Association. This year’s contingent is the second since the pandemic, Moore said. 

The program would love to have some more volunteers to help put together an auction next year, Moore said, as well as getting the word out to the community and to students who might like to participate. 

The program has sent hundreds of Moses Lake students to Japan over the years, some of them from the same families, Moore said.  

“We’ve had students over there whose brothers and sisters have come, and we’ve had students here whose brothers and sisters have gone through the years,” she said. 

Donations to help support the program can be made at https://bit.ly/YonezawaExchange25.