Mayor Nagafuji Visit - November 12-14, 2025

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Knowing that Sakai’s Mayor Nagafuji wants more business start-ups in biotech and other emerging business, during our visit to Sakai last April we presented the Mayor with an idea.  What about having a UC Berkeley student come to Sakai to help teach scientific English so that students from Sakai would succeed in entering Cal State East Bay, Berkeley City College, or the UC system, with the aim of bringing home valuable knowledge.  The result was his desire to visit us in Fall, 2026 to meet the people at SkyDeck and the Haas E-Hub and to see how we do high school.  After many long threads of back and forth with the International Division folks in Sakai, it all came together in an utterly-packed two-night, day-and-a-half visit from November 12-14.

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Mayor Ishii visits Sakai - Dec 2025

After Sakai Mayor Nagafuji visited Berkeley, Mayor Ishii made a reciprocal trip to Sakai - her first time there.

2025 Photography Exchange

Our Middle School Photography exchange is off to a lively start! 
 
In August 2025, 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.
 

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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