2026 Student Exchange Plans
We received many applications and made the cut to the 8 students that will represent Berkeley in the 2026 Berkeley-Sakai Student Exchange. The students started monthly meetings in September, 2025 to cover history, culture, food, language, and other aspects of Japanese life so they can excel as our ambassadors. The trip will take place in July, 2026.
2025 Photography Exchange
Our Middle School Photography exchange is off to a lively start this fall!
In August, Board member and Longfellow history teacher Forest Borie gathered over a hundred photographs illustrating Life in Berkeley taken by his middle school students last year, and had them bound into three neat booklets.
On October 6, 2025 we sent off those booklets to Sakai to be used as conversational prompts in the Sakai-Berkeley Association's 46th Annual Junior High School English Speech Contest, held on October 15. They arrived October 13 in perfect time to be displayed at the school with a cheerful Cal Bear stuffie sporting a ninja-style American flag.
For several years now we have looked for the best way to conduct this photo exchange, seeking a good sponsor inside Sakai schools. It seems as if, in the person of Mr. Kazuyuki Suwa of the International Division, we have finally found our ideal contact as well as a great event where the pictures will be featured and enjoyed by fellow middle-schoolers. The plan is for the booklets to live in the City Office after the English contest, for visitors to see.
For pictures, click this link - https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipNlFxh-56ajeXhF7bJoBOKwd66WMrDszotnkaUR
April 2025 Goodwill Mission to Sakai
After last fall’s fun Goodwill Visit from our friends in Sakai, a few of us thought, “Let’s return the favor!” It had been two years since Forest Borie broke the post-COVID ice with a flying Board visit to Sakai, and most of us had never been in Japan for hanami, the Cherry Blossom Festival.
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