Palmer reaches out to aid Sister City

PALMER — Saroma, Japan has a 30-year relationship with Palmer and now that the island nation is reeling from a devastating earthquake and tsunami, their Alaskan counterparts are pitching in to help.

“I’ve been meeting people and talking with people every day about this,” said Linda Combs, who works with Palmer Saroma Kai, the organization set up to facilitate the Sister City relationship. “Anybody that was involved with the Sister City in particular was getting questions. What do you think Palmer, if anything, will do? What should I do? How can I help?”

Saroma was largely spared the fate that befell some of its neighbors. The city is still intact with minimal damage. But the 8.9 magnitude earthquake brought the country to its knees and the effects will be felt nationwide for a long time to come. Combs mentioned an influx of refugees and shortages of supplies as two things that could easily affect Palmer’s Sister City.

Carla Swick, Sister City co-chair, said she wanted to know more as soon as she got word about the earthquake and tsunami. She said she was especially worried about Saroma. Swick was the first Palmerite to go to Japan to teach English through the Sister City program. She went there as soon as she finished her student teaching requirements in the Valley and stayed three years. But her relationship with Japan goes back even farther than that.

“My first exposure to Saroma was as a 17-year-old. I was sitting at Palmer High School and I heard an announcement that they were going to send a high school student over with the delegation with the mayor,” she said. She applied to go and was selected. “That was my first experience of really getting out of Alaska.”

The day she heard about the quake, she waited until she got a free moment at work and then jumped on the Internet.

“I immediately wrote an e-mail to Saroma asking how is everybody, is everybody OK. I didn’t get an e-mail back, which made me nervous,” she said. “That’s where Facebook comes in. It was really on Facebook that we got a response that things were fine.”

The first indication came from Sean Holland, who posted to his Facebook page almost immediately after the quake. Swick said she found a similar post on the Facebook page for Saroma’s translator.

Like Combs, Swick was inundated with inquiries from her neighbors asking how to help Japan and if the Saroma officials everyone had come to know were OK. Palmer has set up what it’s calling the Japanese Disaster Relief Fund for people who want to send money. Donations can be made in person at the city or mailed to 231 W. Evergreen Ave., Palmer, AK 99654. Please write the name of the fund in the memo line.

Both Combs and Swick said the plan is to send the money to city officials they know in Japan and let them decide where the money is most needed. The people on the ground in Japan should have a better idea how to best help, the two said.

“Even if it ends up in the Japanese Red Cross, they’re on site, they’re closer to it,” Combs said.

And there are plans afoot for a bigger kind of celebration. Even before the quake the Palmer Museum of History and Art was planning an exhibition of the gifts the city had received from Saroma over the years. The exhibition was to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Sister City relationship.

“They have graciously and enthusiastically embraced our idea of using the event as a fund-raiser,” Combs said of museum staff.

It’s set for April 3. That same night, taiko drummers will perform at the Palmer Train Depot. Organizers are working to put together a silent auction. Students who have been to Japan are hoping to teach people origami. There’s also talk of sumi-e painting, calligraphy, meditation, haiku, storytelling, games and food.

“It seems to be growing exponentially day by day,” Combs said.

What started as a museum exhibit has grown into The Saroma Festival and Disaster Relief Benefit.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.