Kent restarts sister‑city youth exchanges and recognizes returning ambassadors

The City of Kent signaled a full restart of its sister‑city youth exchange program and recognized returning youth ambassadors at a city‑hosted event where organizers described recruiting goals and program priorities going into 2025.

Mayor (name not specified) told attendees the program has a long history in Kent and that the city has resumed exchanges since the COVID hiatus: “I have been a fan of our Kent sister cities program since about 1987,” the mayor said, noting recent travel to partner cities and meetings with school and municipal leaders to revive year‑long exchanges.

The Kent Auburn Thoma Sisters City Committee (KAT) — the local volunteer committee that coordinates exchanges — reported it restarted exchanges in summer 2023 and sent four youth ambassadors in 2024. KAT leadership said those ambassadors logged sizable community‑service hours: the committee reported the 2024 ambassadors earned between 480 and 520 hours of community service each.

The KAT chair (name not specified) framed the restart as a recovery from the COVID period and described ongoing volunteer needs: “Since COVID is, essentially, we kinda went into a hiatus. We've lost some people over that amount of time, and it's really, really hard to rebuild some of these committees,” the chair said, urging community members to recruit new volunteers for the China and Norway committees.

Organizers outlined near‑term recruitment and program details: the committee said it has four active applications for the summer 2025 exchange (all currently from Kent), a fifth potential applicant, and two potential applicants from Auburn. The committee also reported it has one year‑long applicant for the first time since 2020 (named in the meeting as Nawei) and a possible second year‑long applicant.

Volunteers listed program priorities for the coming year, including development of a code of conduct for both U.S. and incoming foreign youth ambassadors and expanded pre‑departure cultural training. The committee reported having a full volunteer board in place to support those efforts.

At the event, organizers presented a certificate recognizing 500 hours of community service to Jacob Li, who spoke about his three‑week youth exchange to Yangshuo, China. “I was there for 3 weeks,” Jacob Li said during his presentation, describing site visits to museums, Tsinghua and the Great Wall, and cultural activities he experienced during the trip.

Committee members and city staff said they will continue outreach to rebuild volunteer capacity for committee work and to support year‑long and summer exchanges with partner cities mentioned during the event, including cities in Japan, China and Norway.

The event closed with thanks to volunteers, ambassadors and host families and a request that community members consider volunteering to support the committee’s work in the coming year.