Montclair's Sister Cities
Montclair has Sister City relationships with municipalities in Europe: Graz, Austria; Barnet, England; and, most recently, Aquilonia, Italy
Graz, the second largest city in Austria, is located in the southeast region of the country. The Montclair–Graz Sister City relationship was formed after WW II, under the world peace efforts pioneered by the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The outreach with Graz began directly after the war – Montclair was sending medical supplies and care packages to Austria, while Mountainside Hospital contributed an urgently needed x-ray machine and an incubator to the bombed-out hospital in Graz.
Today the relationship sees an active exchange of students, business executives, government officials, scientists, engineers and cultural representatives, including individual musicians and large orchestras.
Barnet is the largest London borough by population. The Montclair–Barnet relationship dates to World War II when Helen Barrett Speers, wife of then Montclair mayor, headed a committee that in 1943 helped evacuate 52 children from Barnet to Montclair as part of Operation Pied Piper when millions of people, most of them children, were relocated to rural areas in Britain and overseas.
The Friends of Barnet community organization was officially founded in 1949. It helped forge the official Sister City relationship with Montclair in 1981. Friends of Barnet participates in regular cultural exchanges with Barnet Borough; these include exchanges with Montclair High School students.
Aquilonia is a town and commune in the province of Avellino, part of the Campania region in southern Italy. Montclair’s Sister City relationship with the town was forged in January 2017. Township resident Raffaele Marzullo, who is originally from Aquilonia, spearheaded the Sister City effort with fellow parishioners from Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church. The 100-year-old Club Aquilonese San Vito Society of Montclair, one of the church’s religious service organizations, helped to welcome immigrants to Montclair, including many from Aquilonia.
