SISTER CITIES OF VOLUSIA

President's PEN:

Bonjour, Hola, Ola!  It is a pleasure to greet our members and friends in our community and our international Sister Cities.  Though the last couple of years have been challenging, our Sister Cities Association has continued to create opportunities to bring art and culture to our community enhanced by the participation of our International

Sister Cities.

 

Monthly Zoom meetings have enabled our Board to meet and include our friends from Bayonne, Campeche and Diamantina.  We have also been able to enjoy our guest speakers, Meshella Woods and Coach Cal Cochran, joining us during a Zoom meeting. Meshella Woods shared details of her trip to Ghana with the group from Gainesville who hope to arrange a sister city there.  Coach Cal, University High School Assistant Girls Basketball Team Coach and Coach of the Nigerian Women’s basketball team enlightened us on both team activities. 

 

Our annual fundraiser event for the Betty Nelson Scholarship Fund has been online the past two years to continue this event without meeting in person.  We appreciate the community support for this annual event and look forward to scheduling the event live in the near future!

 

We sponsor local art/culture focused groups including the Daytona Writer’s Guild, the Daytona Symphony Guild, the Volusia County World Language Festival and AACS.  It is a pleasure to have an opportunity to support other groups in our community who share our mission and collaborate when possible.

 

The Global Teacher Institute held in Campeche, Mexico in June was planned by Dr. Mary Risner and sponsored by the U of F Center for Latin American Studies and was very successful.  Thanks to Chris Gellermann, Spanish teacher at NSBH, for the detailed journal and photos of planned activities for participating teachers.  We are looking forward to our next visit to Campeche and the Yucatán peninsula.  We also hope to celebrate 25 years as Sister Cities with Bayonne, France in 2023, in Bayonne.

 

Spanish Heritage Month is celebrated during the month of September.  Our Association funded art and craft materials for Jennifer Surgent, art teacher at Beachside Elementary School, so that her students could make and study Items specific to Hispanic culture. A dinner has been planned for September 16 at La Hacienda Restaurant to celebrate Mexican Independence and we always enjoy our Cinco de Mayo dinner!

 

Teachers locally as well as in our Sister Cities continue to plan student exchanges and arrange pen pals so that education and culture can be shared and enjoyed by all.  We received a book from Djibouti, Africa, asking for a page from us about our city.  Each of our Sister Cities added a page and the book was returned to Djibouti.

 

The 2022 Annual Meeting was held on February 22 at the Halifax Plantation Club.  The slate of officers was approved and I personally want to thank those who have accepted the positions on our Board and keep us going!  Our special guest at the meeting was Nadia K May Acosta, Campeche educator.

 

Check our Facebook page to stay updated and join our Association for the rest of 2022!

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Dixie Blake, President

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Please click the link below to get a full copy of our Summer newsletter of 2022.

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