OPINION: 45 Years of International Friendship
Fredericksburg's sister-city relationship with Fréjus , France, was celebrated at the recent membership meeting marking 45 years of international friendships and exchanges.
By Craig Vasey
This Thursday, December 17, in the theater of the Central Rappahannock Regional Library headquarters, the Fredericksburg-Fréjus Sister City Association held its Annual Membership Meeting at which Mayor Kerry Devine presented a Mayoral Proclamation recognizing the 45th Anniversary of the Association.
Mayor Devine accompanied a delegation of 22 FFSCA members in September for a ten-day visit to Fréjus, which included a public ceremony reaffirming the sister city relationship between Fredericksburg and Fréjus, as well as participation in the renowned Giant Omelet Festival. As a gift to Fréjus, the City and the FFSCA funded local artist Cathy Herndon to create a mural on an exterior wall of the public library, expressing friendship, peace, and hope.
The FFSCA (known as the FSCA until last year, because today there are a total of five sister city associations in Fredericksburg) was created in 1980, when Lawrence Davies was mayor. Tom Mann, one of the founding members, was in attendance at the December 17 meeting. The Sister City program was first created during the Eisenhower administration as a means to promote peace and understanding between cultures and countries through direct citizen-to-citizen contacts, rather than relying on official national governmental institutions.
Annually, since then, there has been a high school student exchange program which allows Fredericksburg area students aged 15-17 to spend ten days with a French family in Fréjus during odd years, and then hosting the French host family’s student in Fredericksburg the following summer. Josie LeDoux and Eliza Byrd., two students from the July 2025 exchange program to Frejus were on hand to report on their experience, and they impressed the meeting with their insights about the ways the experience changed their way of seeing the world and language, and opened up friendships for them that have become central for them now.
Besides living in a French family for 10 days, they visited many historic and teen-oriented sites in Fréjus – a city founded in Roman times, with a standing Roman arena, theater, and ruins of aqueducts, as well as attractions like the waterpark Aqualand, not to mention being situated on the French Riviera.
The FFSCA exchange program continues in July 2026, when a dozen French students will visit Fredericksburg. Families interested in participating are welcome to submit an application and to learn details of the program from the FFSCA website Fredericksburg Sister City Association – Bringing Fredericksburg and Fréjus Closer Together They can also contact the FFSCA at FSCA1980@gmail.com.
At the meeting, Judy Hansen was recognized and applauded for her work for over 30 years on the Board of the FFSCA, having served three terms as president. A new Board of Directors and new Officers were elected for 2026-2028, with Jack East taking over as president from Craig Vasey. Two members of the Board, Kristin Moeller and Tonya Wade, are themselves “veterans” of the student exchange program from their high school days, and Kristin has served as a chaperone for the student visits to France three times.
Craig Vasey is chair of the Board of Trustees for FXBG Advance.
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit the link that follows.
Support Award-winning, Locally Focused Journalism
The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past year, our reporting was:
First to break the story of Stafford Board of Supervisors dismissing a citizen library board member for “misconduct,” without informing the citizen or explaining what the person allegedly did wrong.
First to explain falling water levels in the Rappahannock Canal.
First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project
Our media group also offers the most-extensive election coverage in the region and regular columnists like:
And our newsroom is led by the most-experienced and most-awarded journalists in the region — Adele Uphaus (Managing Editor and multiple VPA award-winner) and Martin Davis (Editor-in-Chief, 2022 Opinion Writer of the Year in Virginia and more than 25 years reporting from around the country and the world).
For just $8 a month, you can help support top-flight journalism that puts people over policies.
Your contributions 100% support our journalists.
Help us as we continue to grow!
This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”