Wareham residents welcome friends from Wareham, United Kingdom as a part of a cultural exchange program where Warehamites from across the pond visit and establish friendships.

The cultural exchange program known as “twinning” is when two towns make an agreement to promote travel and cultural exchange between one another. 

The Wareham Twinning Committee is a group of Wareham, Massachusetts citizens that coordinate with the Wareham Twinning Group in the United Kingdom. The twinning committee hosted an informational meeting for Wareham M.A. residents interested to learn more about it at the Wareham Historical Society meeting house Sunday, Oct. 6.

How twinning works is Wareham M.A. residents would travel to Wareham U.K. and stay with a host family. At a later date, Wareham U.K. residents would travel to the U.S. and stay with a host family here.

The first recorded instance of twinning between the two Wareham's dates back to the 1800s when a Wareham U.S. resident sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to visit Wareham across the pond.

Wareham Twinning Committee president Claire Smith visited Wareham U.K. three years ago and is now hosting Marie and Jon Wright, the family she and her husband Howie stayed with.

Through her time in the U.K., Smith said she has been able to build meaningful and lasting friendships with the people she has encountered on her travels.

"Marie and Howie both have the same personality and the both of them have a great sense of humor," said Smith. "The two of them joke with one another and Jon and I just sit there and it's a lot of fun to watch the interaction between them. It makes the day a lot of fun to be with them."

Smith explained building these friendships is the most important part of Twinning.

"When you build friendships you have a better understanding of the rest of the world and how [other people] think and why they think the way they do," said Smith. "It's different over there but it's not different, it's the same but a little different perspective."

According to Smith, the next step is to establish a permanent committee for the Wareham Twinning Committee so that travel between the two towns will become more consistent. Smith explained as the current committee gets older, they are looking for interested people to continue travel and cultural exchange between the two towns.