2023 Year-End Letter
Dear SJA Supporters and Followers,
As many of you know, Study Japanese in Arlington (SJA) reached an important milestone this Fall, celebrating its fifth anniversary as a non-profit organization after being incorporated in September 2018 with a board of directors of twelve including two youth board members. We are expanding our board to fifteen members while continuing to honor our principle of having multiple youth board members to strengthen our focus on and connection to youth attending Arlington Public Schools.
This year we have four high school and one college student board members. SJA concluded a very active 2022-23 fiscal year about which you can read and see photos of our many SJA’s activities in our latest annual report on the Annual Reports section of our website. We were able to receive donations and payments from the Japan Commerce Association of Washington, D.C. Foundation, some individual donors and through events such as tea ceremony and origami workshops at Pink in the Park, Arlington’s first National Cherry Blossom Festival Event this year and the Sakura Matsuri.
In the 2023-24 fiscal year, we have new board leadership and a new committee structure enabling us to expand our partnerships and activities as well as fundraising. We continue to incubate partnership with Setagaya City, a ward just west of central Tokyo, and are now in our fourth year of online youth exchanges, and getting closer to hopefully create a friendship and then sister city agreement. Meanwhile we continue to support the sister school relationship between Arlington Career Center/Tech HS and Tokyo Metropolitan Horticultural (Engei) HS by helping arrange short visits by students and administrators to each other’s schools.
As for our language and cultural programming, since summer 2023, SJA is ensuring we have regular conversation classes for youth and adults whether virtual or in-person. Arlington Central Library has been hosting the Japanese conversation classes on Wednesdays from 12-1 pm, which has become a strong community. Origami remains an activity and booth in demand for cultural events in and around Arlington, with activities tying to USA and Japanese seasonal celebrations, holidays and community projects.
SJA sees a crisis in making as the Japanese 1 in Arlington Public Schools has declined this school year. Our goal is to see Japanese as a World Language offering expand to Japanese 4 and AP Japanese in APS high schools, and start offering the Japanese language starting in middle school. Meanwhile we hope that APS allow taking the Japanese language via Virtual Virginia as an option as it is building the Japanese language courses (it released Japanese 1). We also hope to help with Japanese K-12 World Language teacher certification and recruitment.
One of our dreams is to create an exchange program where SJA can send at least one APS student to Setagaya City every summer for a homestay and Japanese lessons and we can do the same here while hosting Setagaya youth.
As you consider your tax-deductible donations to non-profit organizations by the end of 2023, we ask for your support by making a donation to SJA. Any amount, no matter how small or large, will help. Donations can be made online through our website’s “Donate” button, or by clicking this link. Thank you for your support.
If you are interested in becoming more involved with SJA’s activities, please don’t hesitate to contact us at info@sjastudy.org and we will connect you to the appropriate committee chairs.
In gratitude for your support,
SJA Board Members
Emiko Todoroki, President
Joe Recht, Vice President
John McLaughlin, Secretary
Miwako Horisawa, Treasurer
Sophia Field, Member at Large
Sasha Jovanovski, Member at Large
Junko Katada, Member at Large
Yoshimi Muto, Member at Large
Sabrina Nelson, Member at Large
Miyuki Stone, Member at Large
Khaliun Enkhbold, Youth Member at Large
Kamryn Sauri, Youth Member at Large
Yuta Toda, Youth Member at Large
Hanna Vasquez, Youth Member at Large