{"id":63,"date":"2013-01-27T02:04:40","date_gmt":"2013-01-27T02:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sancarlossistercity.wordpress.com\/?page_id=63"},"modified":"2023-04-25T06:30:07","modified_gmt":"2023-04-25T06:30:07","slug":"our-history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/sancarlossistercity.com\/?page_id=63","title":{"rendered":"Our History"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sister City History<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Sister City movement became a national effort when President\u00a0Dwight D.<\/p>\n

\"eisenhower\"<\/a>
\nEisenhower proposed the People-to-People program at a White House conference in 1956. \u00a0For additional information, please click this\u00a0link<\/a> to be directed to the Sister Cities International website.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

San Carlos Sister City History<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Sister City Spirit in San Carlos started in 1976<\/strong> when\u00a0our Bi-Centennial Committee adopted Bennington, Vermont as our “Sister City”. \u00a0A monument and plaque were placed in Burton Park near the corner of Brittan Avenue and Woodland Avenue, along with a \u00a0grove of trees.<\/p>\n

The San Carlos Sister Committee Association, as we know it now, was incorporated on May 2, 1997. \u00a0Our first official sister city was Croyden, Australia. The relationship started in 1991 and featured an annual\u00a0 chess match over long distance telephone lines. San Carlos featured a small group\u00a0of committee members\u00a0at city hall with the player selected from a local high school. However, down under in Croyden they were celebrating their summer festival and the chess men were real people, dressed to fit their role (from king to pawn) who crumbled to the ground when captured by their San Carlos opponent.\u00a0 This battle continued for four years along with a number of visits from one side of the world to the other until the Australian government merged Croyden and\u00a0the neighboring community of Ringwood into a large city named Maroondah and our relationship ended in 1995.<\/p>\n

In 1994<\/strong>, a delegation\u00a0headed by Council Member Sylvia Nelson\u00a0from traveled to Scandicci, Italy to scope out the possibility of another sister city.\u00a0 Scandicci is a city located near Florence and was focused on economic development and international trade. We managed to implement an elementary school art and letter writing program. However, a long term relationship did not materialize due to language issues and the high cost of travel.<\/p>\n

In 2004<\/strong> we were encouraged by an NGO official to consider a relationship with San Carlos , Nicaragua located on\u00a0\u00a0the Rio\u00a0San Juan River\u00a0which connects \u00a0Lake Cocibolca to the Caribbean. This is a very poor town of 10,000 looking for economic development centered on fishing and river\u00a0life \u00a0on the Rio San Juan. Early on, we recognized that this relationship would not be an equal mix of home exchanges and reciprocal programs since our friends to the south were very poor and not able to travel north. However, we decided to raise money to fund a few programs to better their life as best we could.\u00a0 First, we funded an “Internet cafe” which would bring Internet to the San Carlos community. Local officials provided the facility and we funded the Internet connection and hardware.\u00a0 We also purchased soccer balls and team uniforms for the school team.\u00a0 While we were not able to do much for economic development, the board is proud of the contributions \u00a0made.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In 2005<\/strong> we formed a compact with Okotoks, Canada a city of about 30,000 people located 23km south of Calgary. During the next few years, we developed a fine art exchange, hosted city officials\u00a0for a mutual discussion of city government issues, and arranged several home-to-home exchanges. While our relationship with Okotoks continues, the lack of a formal sister city committee in Okotoks limits our ability to develop programs.<\/p>\n

In 2008<\/strong> at the recommendation of \u00a0Mr. Dumas, President of Sister City International (SCI), \u00a0SCSC board members contacted Ms. Rosario Velasco, a former board member of SCI, to search for a sister city in Mexico. \u00a0She proposed Metepec after which, an invitation to visit was received. It was during this visit that documents were signed pledging the two cities together.<\/p>\n

\u00a0San Carlos Student Exchange<\/strong><\/p>\n

The San Carlos Sister City Student Exchange program started 2012<\/strong> with two students visiting from Omura, Japan for two weeks.\u00a0 This year we are planning an exchange with Metepec, Mexico with the goal of four to six students from the mid-Peninsula in each program. \u00a0The students will be hosted by English-speaking Japanese and Mexican families for a truly cultural experience. \u00a0In addition, we are looking for local families to host English speaking Japanese and Mexican students for two weeks, this summer.<\/p>\n

For more details, please click this link<\/a> to be directed to the Student Exchange page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sister City History The Sister City movement became a national effort when President\u00a0Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed the People-to-People program at a White House conference in 1956. \u00a0For additional information, please click this\u00a0link to be directed to the Sister Cities International Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":48,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"two_page_speed":null,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-63","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sancarlossistercity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sancarlossistercity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sancarlossistercity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sancarlossistercity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sancarlossistercity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/sancarlossistercity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/63\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1249,"href":"http:\/\/sancarlossistercity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/63\/revisions\/1249"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sancarlossistercity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/48"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sancarlossistercity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}