Sister city plans moving slowly

The committee charged with developing Hutto’s sister city relationship with Chililabombwe, Zambia held its first community meeting July 23.

Sister city liaison Kyle Sears said plans are moving slowly but surely toward developing programs to take advantage of the sister city relationship.

“We don’t have to do everything at once,” he said. “Rome was not built in a day.”

Last Wednesday’s meeting rehashed many of the plans presented to the Hutto City Council June 19, such as a proposed pen pal program and microlending opportunities for local investors. The projects are still in the planning stage, Sears said.

“What I’ve been doing for the past six weeks is getting some foundation laid,” he said.

The pen pal program is, at this point, just an idea. Sears said he expects school administrators to be interested in the program, though he has not yet sought their approval.

“I’ve not gotten any go-ahead,” he said. “But because it’s an infrequent sort of thing, I don’t anticipate a lot of hesitancy.”

Sears also reiterated the group’s plans to establish lines of microcredit between small investors in Hutto and needy businesspeople in Chililabombwe.

“Microloans are a very easy way to get your foot in the door,” he said.

Kebby Shampongo, Sears’s counterpart in Chililabombwe, is working to develop the microlending relationship on the Zambian side, Sears said.

Another item from the group’s initial presentation to the city council is a library book exchange — the Hutto Public Library would trade books about Texas for books about Zambia. Hutto Librarian Yasmeen Jehangir said she supports the idea of a book exchange with the African city.

“It [would be] a great cultural exchange of literature,” she said. “It’ll be great for the kids.”

She said City Manager Ed Broussard notified her of the proposed book exchange via e-mail, but the proposal has gone no further than that.

“Nobody’s followed it up with me yet,” she said. “We didn’t put a timeline for any further discussion on it.”

Sears said he is completing paperwork necessary to obtain 501(c) non-profit status for the group, thus allowing it to raise funds and accept donations.

The first community awareness event for the sister city planning group will be the Hutto Business Showcase, which will be held Aug. 9 at Hutto Middle School. The committee will be there manning an information booth to drum up interest in the group’s plans.

Sears said the committee is also planning a chili cook-off for early November to spread information about the sister city relationship and that the group has also made plans to produce a brochure to explain the sister city relationship to the people of Hutto.

“The primary function is to let the community get to know Chililabombwe,” he said.

With that goal in mind,

The next open meeting of the committee will be held at the end of August, Sears said.