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Eagle Point students hope to visit Japan Raising money for cultural exchange By VICKI GUARINO EAGLE POINT -- Fund-raising missed the mark last year, but a small group of students is trying again to collect enough money to send themselves on a cultural exchange to Japan. "Things seem much more organized this year, but we have a long way to go," says Eagle Point Junior High eighth-grader Stephanie Kneedler. Stephanie is one of 13 seventh- and eighth-graders at her school working toward making the trip at the end of the school year. Last year, car washes, raffles, sales and other events earned the group only about $400 toward a 10-day trip that is expected to cost each student $1,500, says Principal Dennis Quiring. This year the exchange group is seeking business support and grants to bolster student-run money-making events. "We are struggling trying to figure out new angles," Quiring says. Like Stephanie, Quiring also sees better chances this year for the group's success. "I think our kids are really committed this year, and we have more parents involved," says Quiring. The trip to Japan in June would return visits by Japanese students in the past two years. The students from Showa, Japan, a city about 60 miles from Tokyo, stayed in the homes of junior high exchange program members like Stephanie. The visits and the culture studies program were put together by a former Eagle Point student who taught in Showa and wanted to give his hometown a taste of his experiences. Quiring says the trip would benefit students by introducing them to another culture -- one that puts a premium on education. "They'll see students who go to school 10 hours a day, six days a week," he says. Stephanie just wants the chance to travel and experience a different culture. "I'm really interested in seeing their way of life," she says. "I want to see everything." One apparent difference between the two student groups is financial. Japanese students' travel funds have been supplemented by their school district and their city government, Quiring says. "They have a hard time understanding why funding is so difficult for us," he says. And last year's funding attempt proved the project to be more difficult than Quiring expected. This year, students already have been warned that group fund-raising probably won't raise all of the travel money each student will need. Stephanie's mother, Sue Kneedler, is heading the fund-raising committee. She says the students are at a difficult age to earn much money on their own, and she worries that the group has a huge task ahead. "I want to say `yes, we'll do it,"' Kneedler says, "but a part of me says, `Oh boy ...' "But I don't want to have to tell her again that she can't go." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA