A new piece added to the Idaho Falls Friendship Garden
The Idaho Falls Friendship Garden was started in 2011 and is continuing to grow, a ceremony was held Monday to honor the designer and builder of a new Japanese Pavilion.
Edward Zaladonis designed and built the pavilion. The conceptual design started four years ago by Zaladonis.
“I’ve been working on it for four summers, about 1,000 hours a year,” Zaladonis said.
The design review and approval process involved the city Building Department and structural engineer. All designs and construction work was done by volunteers.
Community members, local organizations and the City of Idaho Falls donated money, time and materials towards the building of the pavilion and the garden.
The tiles on the roof weigh 8,000 pounds and were shipped from Japan.
“It took us a full year and a quarter to put the tiles on,” Zaladonis said.
Zaladonis said the project is not entirely complete, “We keep making additions to the garden, so there will be a river overlook next year and a wall on the riverside to provide more shelter the year after that.”
In 2014 the Tokai-mura community donated funding for Japanese tiles and towards other projects in the garden.
Cindy Ozaki is a member of the Sister Cities Association and said it’s important to have other cultures and traditions in the community.
“We need to connect person to person,” Ozaki said.
She also added, “We became sister cities based on our nuclear power industries. And research and potato growing regions. So our Idaho National Laboratory is similar to the power region of Tokai-mura region in Japan.”
Sister Cities International was created by President Dwight Eisenhower’s 1956 White House conference on Citizen Diplomacy. With the goal of creating relationships based on cultural, educational, information and trade exchanges, creating lifelong friendships that provide prosperity and peace through person-to-person “citizen diplomacy.”
Since then, Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and now President Barack Obama, have served as the Honorary Chairman of Sister Cities International.
