Fort Lauderdale Sister Cities International – A Short….Long History! In1986 Mayor Bob Cox appointed Nuccia McCormick to the Ft. Lauderdale International Advisory Board. The goal: revitalize the Ft. Lauderdale chapter of the “People To People” project that was created in 1961 and had been dormant for several years. In 1986, Ft. Lauderdale had three formal city affiliations: Medellin, Colombia, Rimini, Italy and Gold Coast, Australia. A year later, the project was once again alive. Committees were formed to support this special organization that was officially incorporated in 1987 as Fort Lauderdale People to People Program. The name was formally changed to Greater Fort Lauderdale Sister Cities International (GFLSCI) on July 19, 1990. In 1990, newly elected Mayor Jim Naugle began working closely with all GFLSCI committees in order to aggressively recruit Venice, Italy as a Sister City. GFLSCI hosted the Venice, Italy delegation, comprised of their International Minister and Economic Development members. Next, a GFLSCI delegation, led by Mayor Naugle, followed up with a visit to Venice. At that time Ft. Lauderdale and Venice formally became “Friendship Sister Cities”. Unfortunately, just short of the two cities becoming “Official Sister Cities”, Venice elected a new mayor who was not ready to officially “twin” with any cities in America. However GFLSCI continued it's quest to pair with Venice and on May 18, 2007 Fort Lauderdale and Venice became officially linked as sister cities. Since 1986, the Fort Lauderdale Sister Cities International organization has joined with twelve additional Sister Cities for a current total of fifteen:
Additionally, GFLSCI is in negotiations with nine more potential Sister Cities located from all corners of the world. The goal of Greater Fort Lauderdale Sister Cities International is to be globally recognized as one of the most interesting and desirable “Sister Cities” in the world.
GFLSCI has once again helped to bring Fort Lauderdale to the world stage by hosting the 51st Annual Sister City International Conference. More then 600 delegates from over 36 countries around the world attended the conference. GFLSCI looks forward to what the future brings to Fort Lauderdale and looks to deliver more events to help benefit our community and those who we are paired with.
