A Toledo delegation, including Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz and his wife, Sarah, will travel abroad Sunday to officially finalize a Sister Cities agreement with Coburg, Germany.
Sister Cities are established through mayor-to-mayor agreements, which are signed with an eye toward fostering positive relationships between residents of foreign countries.
The Toledo delegation, which is scheduled to return Dec. 16, will make official the Sister Cities agreement that began in 2019 when a delegation from Coburg visited Toledo to sign the agreement. The pandemic delayed the opportunity for the Toledo mayor’s return trip to sign the agreement in Coburg until now, said Roseanne Labuhn Martinez, president of the Toledo German Sister City Committee.
“The goals of Sister Cities International is to promote educational, cultural, and economic relations between the two cities in the hope to create world peace,” Ms. Martinez said Friday.
During the visit, a cooperation agreement will also be signed between the Toledo Technology Academy of Engineering and the State Vocational College-Coburg Technical College for Mechanical Engineering. With the agreement, the two schools will become “Preferential Partners in the International Exchange Program,” according to a Toledo Public Schools official.
Vandita Prasad, assistant director of Toledo Technology Academy of Engineering, is part of the delegation traveling to Germany, where she will meet with school officials there to talk about the program. Then, in April, two students and a teacher from Germany will come to Toledo to participate in several weeks of classroom learning before returning to Germany with two students and a teacher from Toledo, who will do the same, Ms. Prasad said Friday.
“There are so many goals. Of course, the big one is giving the students the chance to travel overseas. Many of our students have never had that experience, so it will be life-changing for them,” Ms. Prasad said.
Experiencing the cultural and educational differences will also be eye-opening, she said, adding that students will need to apply and meet certain criteria to be selected for the spring trip.
In addition to Mr. and Mrs. Kapszukiewicz, Ms. Prasad, and Ms. Martinez, other members of the delegation are Misael Martinez, Dagmar Varela, Tony Varela, Sarah Curtis, Lisa Curtis, and Melinda Reichelt. While touring Coburg and the nearby city of Bamberg, they will attend meetings and receptions while also making stops at several places, including a Christmas market, brewery, glass museum, and castle. The mayor will also tour two large manufacturing plants.
City Councilman Cerssandra McPherson has been an ardent supporter of the Toledo Sister Cities program. In June, council approved the allocation of $15,000 from the general fund to support various 2023 international academic and cultural initiatives being pursued by Toledo Sister Cities International to promote cultural, academic, economic activities, and tourism.
“We’ve got to re-establish those partnerships and fellowships that we have with other countries,” Ms. McPherson said recently. “It only widens our knowledge and availability to reach out to other countries and other cities to expand what we want to do in the city of Toledo.
“It expands our tourism, our economic development, and reinvestment in our city by reaching out to other countries,” she added.
The city paid $1,149 for the mayor’s flights; all other expenses have been covered by Sisters Cities International, according to a city official. The delegates paid for their trip individually, Ms. Martinez said.
First Published December 8, 2023, 8:03 p.m.
