Happy people could be heard throughout borough hall on July 17, as more than a dozen Haddonfield families met with a group of Japanese students participating in a cultural exchange that is in its 20th year.
Staring in 2006, students from a Japanese high school – currently Sendai Ikuei Gakuen High School – stay with a family in Haddonfield for two weeks. Every other year, borough students do the same in Japan.
The program was started by Bill Brown, a 93-year-old who thought the borough was a good fit for Japanese visitors.
“Unlike many areas of America, where there’s violence and shootings and all sorts of things, Haddonfield is very peaceful,” Brown said. “And so is Japan.”
Each year, the program welcomes about 15 to 20 students from either country with the help of donations from groups in the surrounding area, such as Balance Studios Haddonfield and the Haddonfield Education Association.
Brown pointed to a former student who still hears from her Japanese host family years later.
“I saw her at one of the parades a couple years ago,” he recalled.
Referring to her 4-year-old daughter, she told Brown, “That outfit she’s wearing? It came from Japan. They still send us gifts. So there is a continued relationship there.”
Brown and his wife have hosted Japanese guests at their home at various times since 1977, including students, teachers and Buddhist priests. Over the years, the program has evolved and grown, from just Brown to a whole committee that runs the exchange. He is the co-director.
Committee member Samantha Bermudez and her son Milo are preparing themselves to participate in the exchange this year.
“I’ve been getting to know a lot more about Japanese culture and seeing how Haddonfield culture welcomes other people,” Bermudez explained. “So it’s been really great … I have a lot of things to talk about with people and I want to reach out to people who know more about different cultures. And I’m surprised to find out when my friends have connections there.”
This year’s Japanese exchange students were expected to tour Haddonfield and New York, visit the Jersey Shore and a Hindu temple in Robbinsville, and attend a Phillies game.
Exchange student Karin Ono (left) meets a member of her host family, Elise Gramigna (right).
Elise Gramigna, who just graduated from Haddonfield Memorial High School, is happy to be hosting Karin Ono. They met when Gramigna visited Japan two years ago.
“When I went,” Gramigna recalled, “she (Ono) was like amazing, and I had such a good time with her family that I needed her to come back to America.”
“I’m very excited,” Ono said of her visit. “She’s (Gramigna) hosting me … and it’s so exciting for me to come down.”
Former flight attendant Effie Makary and her son Alec are hosting Yuto Hanabuchi.
“It’s a great opportunity to meet somebody else from a different culture and experience it first hand in the comfort of our home …” she noted. “I think it’s a great opportunity, first and foremost. The kids get to sort of meet somebody else that they otherwise wouldn’t in an environment that’s comfortable for them as well.”
Alec, a rising sophomore, said he heard about the program from his rowing teammates.
“When I joined the crew team, two of the boys that I row with also did it,” he explained. “They were hosting this year, so they gave me information about it.
“I thought it’d be a cool idea.”
Members of this year’s Haddonfield Japanese Exchange program pose with signs after meeting one another at borough hall.
