Friendship Garden symbolizes connection between sister cities
Published 1:30 am Monday, April 6, 2026
SEQUIM — Simultaneously highlighting the beauty of the Friendship Garden and a recently rebooted Japanese-American exchange program, the Sequim-Shiso Sister City Association hosted an open house at Carrie Blake Community Park.
The free event included tours, a kite-building workshop, paper crafts and free portraits in the garden.
Volunteers at the Friendship Garden said it’s possibly the first event of its kind since its formation 30-plus years ago.
“It’ll be nice to have something fun that people can have to focus on happy times,” said Jennie Petit, a volunteer and translator for the Sister City Association.
One of the event’s highlights included a storytelling mobile application by Sequim artist Janine Miller. Visitors could scan QR codes with their phones to see animated myth-based stories at eight locations around the garden, including bridges, the zen garden and across from the lantern.
“Each story corresponds to specific features of the garden, encouraging visitors to engage with both the landscape and the cultural narratives tied to Sequim’s sister-city relationship with Shiso, Japan,” organizers said.
Sequim photographer Tom Bouchard offered limited numbers of portraits for free through his Cedar & Shore Studio.
Children flew kites and docents led guided tours. Petit said 120 paper lanterns made by Sequim School District students were on display in the garden.
Partnership, exchange
Petit said organizers hoped to highlight the Friendship Garden’s connection to Japan.
Sequim signed on for a Sister City agreement on June 5, 1993, with the city of Yamasaki, Japan, and on April 1, 2005, they reaffirmed the partnership after Yamasaki merged with three other towns to become Shiso City.
Junzo Yasui, then-mayor of Yamasaki, offered to establish a Sequim garden in November 1994, and to help fund it for 10 years. It became the Sequim-Shiso Friendship Garden in Carrie Blake Community Park and features a stone lantern that was delivered from Japan in October 1997.
Sequim sent 120-plus students from 1994-2019 to Japan through the Sequim-Shiso Sister City Association to represent Sequim while learning about Japan’s culture, education and family life. It went on hold in 2020 due to COVID-19.
Last October, Sequim and Shiso City agreed to a new exchange schedule with an online exchange on Jan. 24 in Sequim and Jan. 25 in Shiso City.
Representatives sent sweets and games to each other and spoke via a video conference call. Sequim students and chaperones will tentatively visit Shiso City in 2027, and Shiso City students and representatives will visit in late summer 2028.
Friendship Garden
Ten volunteers work weekly to maintain the Friendship Garden from 9 a.m. to noon on Tuesdays through October. Sequim parks staff provide ongoing maintenance. Volunteers first met on March 24 to begin spring cleanup.
George Kennedy began volunteering in 2003, volunteer coordinator Jan Danford in 2013, and many others in more recent years.
Angie Terry said she’s volunteered for five years and that being there feels like meditation. Fellow volunteers agreed, saying it’s their therapy.
Organizers said many of the garden’s plants and arrangements have been based on a Japanese garden. Large rocks are common in and known to symbolize permanence, stability and resilience, they said.
The Sequim-Shiso City Sister City Association meets at 1:30 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month at the Sequim Civic Center’s Burkett Community Room, 152 W. Cedar St.
For more information about the Sequim program and volunteering, call Jim Stoffer at 360-775-9356 or email sequimsistercityassn@gmail.com.
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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. He can be reached by email at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com.
