Sebastopol World Friends

Sebastopol World Friends (SWF) was organized as a Sebastopol City Commission in 1985, the year it began a sister city relationship with Yamauchi, Japan. SWF won a National Award from Sister Cities International for the Best First Year’s Program.

In 1992, a sister city agreement was signed with Chyhyryn, Ukraine. Hundreds of West Sonoma County youth have participated as student ambassadors. Both important exchange programs continue today.

Join us at the United Methodist Church in Sebastopol for the Sebastopol
World Friends yearly General Meeting. We will be meeting in Epworthian Hall. Refreshments will be provided.

We've had a very busy year! Amongst other business, there will be short presentations on the exchange programs this year! Be prepared for lots of funny pictures and good stories!

We look forward to seeing you there! For more information, please contact Leaf at leafroberts@yahoo.com.

Sebastopol World Friends invites 7th and 8th grade students and their parents to an informational meeting about participating in the Sebastopol/Yamauchi sister city exchange program.

Attendance by interested parties in one of the following meetings is required in order to participate in the exchange program.

Oct 13th - 6:30p-7:30p - Hillcrest Middle School - Room 6
Oct 14th - 7-8p - Brookhaven Middle School - Library
Oct 23rd - 7-8p - Twin Hills Charter School - Room 12

For more information, contact:

Christopher Wagner - 707.974.7641 - chriswagner@sebastopolwf.org
Kathy Bell - 707.823.9736 - kbell@santarosa.edu

Please also see the attached PDF files, Adobe Reader or other PDF viewer is required.

Ukraine is a land of exciting contrasts! Join us and learn more about this country of beautiful nature and rich history!

Oleksiy Ternovoy will speak about Ukraine as a whole and Larysa Kolesnik will talk about the traditions of the Poltavska region of Ukraine. Both presenters have many interesting pictures to share and lots of fun information about this fast progressing European country!

Well, there goes my plan of being on this trip and avoiding the blog, unfortunately having an hour to kill and Chris and Kim being...well...Chris and Kim, I am forced to express my thoughts and feelings to the world. It is still difficult to get used to my surroundings, I have recently changed host families and that is still rather awkward. Every time I leave my room or look around or don't eat they ask, you need something? you hungry?

We have just finished a full day and a half of visiting Moscow! The weather could not have been nicer for us. It was supposed to have been rainy the whole weekend, but some light sprinkles are all we have seen.

The past few days have been amazing. I still am slowly realizing that I truly am not in my homeland anymore. Many things that I take for granted are so different here. This is truly a fantastic benefit of living with natives. Even when doing touristy things, our hosts do things that are natural to them.

The three of us (Chris, Kate, and Kim that’s me!) have really been having a great time. It’s a little chilly with the rain the past few days, when you are out site seeing. Thankfully there are more restaurants than there was ten years ago and we are able to stop and have home brewed tea when we need it!

The first few days have been amazing! Today we met with the head of the District of Chyhyryn. It was a short, but very good meeting. At over 2 meters tall (~6'4") he cuts an imposing figure. He spoke of competing in a national competition for most beautiful and attractive region of Ukraine.

I feel so loved and wanted. My host family was so excited to see me. They waited patiently for dinner while I washed up from the trip. They provided me all kinds of Ukrainian foods. (What a spread!!) Katooshka (potatoes) with some dill sprinkled over them, served with sour cream. They also had made fish cakes, and pancakes (with onion, cabbage, egg, flour).