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A small fish, eyes intact, peers out from the breakfast bowl. Three, four, maybe five smiling faces watch intently as you lift the bowl to your lips. Oh, where is Captain Crunch when you need him? Across the sleepy town of 20,000, eleven of your friends are also waking up to cold fish, green tea, and bathrooms that are…well, let’s just call them "confusing." Yet, in another 10 days, you’ll be older, wiser, less quick to judge and, if history can be trusted, far more appreciative of Randolph, Braintree and Brookfield Vermont than you ever thought possible. That’s the experience 12 Randolph Junior High students will have as they participate in the now 15-year-old Randolph-Shizukuishi exchange project this coming June. This year’s travelers include Tiffany Gast, Molly Poirier, Sammi Merrill, Alex Start, Amanda Bowen, Danielle Gagnon, Hayley Smith, Ashley LaFrennier, Annie Hutchinson, Katie Giles, Sarah Roger, and Dakota Emberg. Traveling with the group are high school teachers Harvie Porter and Nicole Racicot. But there is much preparation to be done, and there are still many hurdles—many of them financial—to be cleared. Is it worth it? Junior High advisors Dean Meltzer and Anna Sease think so. "You can’t put into words how important—to the students, and really to society at large—trips like this are," said junior high science teacher Dean Meltzer. "These 12 students will leave here giggling, laughing, maybe a little nervous – in short, acting exactly like junior high school students." "However," Sease joined in, her eyes becoming misty from thoughts of past exchanges, "they’ll come back having seen, lived, and experienced a culture completely different than their own. They’ll eat, sleep, work, and play as part of a Japanese household. Their world view will be expanded tremendously because they will literally have made friends—and become part of another family—halfway around the globe. For a 13-year-old kid, that’s pretty life changing." To help raise the nearly $30,000 needed to fund the trip, the students will be holding car washes, bake sales, a walk-a-thon, a community yard sale, a bottle drive, two raffles, and a Japanese dinner to which the public is invited. In addition, they will be seeking grants and donations. Scheduled activities include:
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