BY GAYLA CAWLEY
REVERE — The city will adopt a sister when it formalizes its long-running relationship with the Japan city of Date in the Fukushima district on Tuesday.
Signing the agreement will be Revere Mayor Brian Arrigo and Date Mayor Shoji Nishida at Revere City Hall at 11 a.m. in the council chamber.
The accord says the cities will promote the development of mutual understanding and friendship.
Since 1994, students from Revere and Date have been visiting their respective sister city as part of the Revere-Tsukidate Japanese Exchange Program. The Date students will be present for the signing ceremony, said Joseph Gravellese, the mayor’s assistant.
Students from Revere and Date take advantage of a cultural exchange program that has allowed youth from each country to immerse themselves in the other’s culture, according to the mayor. The agreement formalizes the friendship between the cities and lays the groundwork for decades of cooperation, he added.
The cities will also exchange gifts during the ceremony. Gravellese said the gifts from Revere will include a Massachusetts flag, hats and plastic badges from the Revere police and fire departments and information about the city. The gifts Date will be sharing are unknown, but Arrigo still has a bottle of Sake in his refrigerator that was sent to him upon his election from Nishida.
During the visit, the mayors will tour Revere’s municipal buildings, including the Revere Public Library and Hill School, while talking and learning from each other, Gravellese said. This is the first sister city agreement for Revere, he added, and is meant to promote the spirit of cooperation and working together between the two municipalities.
“Revere is a perfect example of the fact that we live in a really interconnected world where we have a lot to learn from one another,” he said.
Gayla Cawley can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @GaylaCawley.
