A fundraising banquet Saturday to help a group of student ambassadors travel to Japan this summer found some serious community support.
The banquet, the Kent-Auburn-Tamba Sister Cities Committee’s annual blowout, raised roughly $13,000, according to organizers.
Those are dollars that will help to send a group of seven teenagers to Japan, as part of KAT’s student-ambassador program, as well as supporting KAT programs.
“We’re up a little better from last year,” said Kim Isom, president of the committee and an organizer of Saturday’s event.
Isom said between 140 and 150 people attended the banquet at Green River College’s Lindbloom Center in Auburn.
They were treated to a sit-down dinner, as well as a silent auction and a jam-packed catalog of items for a bidding auction.
The merchandise was as diverse as cell phones and samurai books to Dominican Republic vacations, hot-air balloon rides – even an African safari.
Diners also got into fierce bidding wars for the items on the dessert table, too.
Isom said this year’s event saw a bit of change from those in the past.
“This year we really stepped it up,” she said.
Instead of a buffet line there was a sit-down dinner and a formal atmosphere in their new venue at GRCC.
The audience also got some authentic Japanese entertainment.
Seattle Matsuri Taiko, a drum-performing group from Seattle Buddhist Church, came onto the stage and pounded its way through a half-hour of vigorous numbers. The troupe is composed of musicians aged 13 and up, and had the distinction of performing at the Dala Lama’s Seeds of Compassion visit last year in Seattle.
Organizers also made a point of directing the audience’s attention on the reason they were there: to support the group of seven teens who will represent their communities to the Japanese sister city of Tamba.
Those students are: (Kent) Celena Hansen, Meridian Middle School, and Cameron Scotland, Kentridge High School; (Auburn) Javon Chow, Reed Guisinger, Will Schwindt, Colton Johnson (all of Auburn Riverside High School); and Dillon Hurley, Auburn Mountainview High School.
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