Mpls & Tours Sister Cities

Come out an learn more about Minneapolis and Tours Sister Cities at the Alliance Française Mpls/St Paul Spring Open House on Saturday, March 25, 2023 from 12 to 3 pm. We hope to see you there! À bientôt !

Minneapolis and Tours Sister Cities is now a part of Alliance Française Mpls/St Paul. Alliance Française Mpls/St Paul, at the Joly Center for International Understanding  is an independent chapter of a worldwide organization whose mission is not only to serve the community by promoting the use and appreciation of French language but to promote French cultures through language classes, cultural programs, travel opportunities, social events and information resources.

Although Minneapolis and Tours Sister Cities has been an independent non-profit organization for over 30 years, we have always had a close relationship with the Alliance Française. Through this new collaboration, and by becoming the Minneapolis and Tours Sister Cities committee of the AFMSP, we look forward to the opportunity to reach more people in the broader Francophile community and offer more programming opportunities.

Our team of board members and volunteers from Minneapolis and Tours Sister Cities will continue to operate as a committee through AFMSP, along with help from the dedicated staff at Alliance Française Mpls/St Paul. We invite you to contact us if you have any interest in joining the MTSC committee.

The French city of Tours in central France has been our friend and sister city for 30 years. To support the relationship, the non-profit organization, Minneapolis and Tours Sister Cities hosts visitors, connects people and organizations and encourages cultural and educational exchanges. We are currently looking for new volunteer board members, so if you’re interested in connecting with our French sister city, we want to hear from you! One specific opportunity is for marketing and social media support. To learn more about our organization, please look over our website at http://mplstours.org or contact us at mplstourssc@gmail.com.

The Cedar Lake Bike Trail as seen heading into downtown Minneapolis during the spring

Minneapolis and Tours Sister Cities is devoted to advancing international understanding and engagement even in these difficult times around the world. We invite you to read our blog to re-visit some of the events we have been a part of with our friends from France including the Foire de Tours and their trip to Minneapolis to celebrate our 25th anniversary. You can also check out our Facebook page to view photo galleries of both cities.

And be sure to save the date for Sister Cities Day on Sunday July 19 at the Nicollet Island Pavilion!

Bonne Année! If you would like to stay updated on our events going on throughout 2020, please enter your email address in the box on the right or like us on Facebook.

Our friends in Tours have also started their own citizens group. Please visit their website or like them on Facebook to learn more about their plans for 2020! (Nos amis de Tours ont également créé leur propre groupe de citoyens. S’il vous plaît visitez leur site Web ou les aimer sur Facebook pour en savoir plus sur leurs plans pour 2020!)

Help us strengthen ties between Minnesotans and our sister city Tours in France! 

For more than a quarter century, Minneapolis and Tours Sister Cities has reached across the ocean to engage young and old alike to reinforce the bonds of friendship with Minnesotans and residents of this French city located an hour southwest of Paris. Please help support this work by donating to us on Give to the Max Day – Thursday, November 14, 2019.

In the past year we supported an urban sketcher exchange, a visit by students from Edison High School in Minneapolis, youth soccer games involving Minnesotans in Tours, were featured on a local radio station and hosted a French intern at the Weisman Museum on the University of Minnesota campus. We also continued to plan more activities for the celebration of our 30th anniversary as sister cities in 2021.

Our work is not done as we hope to build on our past successes by continuing to work on strengthening the values that bind us together with others across the world. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization run entirely by volunteers, we rely solely on the donations of individuals like you to help fulfill our mission. To donate, please visit our Give to the Max Day page.

All contributions are 100% tax deductible. Thank you to all of our donors for your ongoing support! 

Minneapolis and Tours Sister Cities invites you to join us for the 12th annual Sister Cities Celebration, an event highlighting our city’s global connections, Sunday, July 21 from 1-5 p.m. at the Nicollet Island Pavilion in Minneapolis. This free family friendly afternoon includes refreshments, live entertainment and the opportunity to learn more about our city’s twelve sister cities. (And yes, it is air conditioned!)

Learn more about the event by visiting the official website of Meet Minneapolis. We are celebrating our 28th anniversary as a sister city with Tours this year, hope to see you there!

Did you know Minneapolis and Tours Sister Cities has a partner organization in France? This citizens group helps us reach across the ocean from Europe to the United States and back as we learn more about our global community. They have a website and Facebook page you can visit and also a brochure for more information. Upcoming projects will include welcoming a group of Urban Sketchers from Minnesota to Tours in June.

Minneapolis and Tours Sister Cities invites you to join us along Victory Memorial Drive on Sunday, November 11, to recognize Veterans Day and the centennial of the World War I armistice. Tours played an important role in the epic conflict once known as “The Great War” by serving as a supply base for the United States army. The Armistice Day program, beginning at 10 a.m., will feature prominent speakers on the war’s local history, musician Robert Robinson and a moment of silence. Weather permitting, the flagpole will cast a shadow on the plaza around 11 a.m. To learn more about this event, please visit https://www.hennepin.us/stories/victory-memorial 

Minneapolis resident Cris Franchevich sends this report about visiting our sister city in France as part of an urban sketchers exchange:

As part of the Sister Cities program, a group of five Minneapolis artists went to Tours, France the first week of June to sketch the city landscape: Kathleen Fenske, Julie Baugnet, Cris Franchevich, C.B. Sherlock and Richard Stephens.

The group had the opportunity to draw with the French chapter of the Urban Sketchers – an all-volunteer nonprofit group dedicated on-location drawing and received enormous support from the local community, drawing together in the large network of pedestrian-friendly streets, bike lanes and plenty of public spaces with plazas and squares, presenting itself the perfect field to practice observational drawing and community-engaged art.

We embraced the Urban Sketchers idea to reclaim the city as a place for gathering, to meet the occupants and encourage connections in the community, to see the city with the eyes of a “flaneur”, a word in French meaning a wanderer, vagrant or explorer using observational drawing as a language to capture impressions.

We are very grateful to the community for the warmth and hospitality and the opportunity to tighten ties between the two cities.

Learn more about urban sketchers and see more images by visiting the website of Tours-Minneapolis or read an article about the group’s visit in La Nouvelle Republique.

“Joan of Arc Saved France,” from the collection of the Weisman Art Museum

After debuting in our sister city last year during the Foire de Tours, nearly 50 historic World War I posters from the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis will be on display to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the World War I armistice. “Fight or Buy Bonds,” running from June 9 – September 9, features American propaganda posters produced to rally the people and help support “the Great War.” This is just one of the beautiful images you will see! For more information, please visit the Weisman’s website.