Mayor Ezra Nanes and the State College Borough Council will host a memorandum of understanding signing ceremony with sister city Nizhyn, Ukraine, at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 3, in Council Chambers at the State College Municipal Building.

Nanes and the Borough Council will also host Nizhyn Mayor Oleksandr Kodola for the signing ceremony.

The memorandum of understanding signing will take place to officially unite State College and Nizhyn as sister cities. According to the resolution approved on March 6, the relationship will aim to “generate new initiatives to further nurture humanitarian pursuits, cultural understanding, economic development, agricultural exchange, sharing of educational knowledge, promotion of human rights, and improved municipal governance.”

“State College is honored to welcome Mayor Kodola and the esteemed delegates from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Washington D.C.,” Nanes said in a release. “The people of Nizhyn are our kin, and we want to support them during this time when their nation is under siege.”

Nizhyn is located about 70 miles northeast of Kyiv and has been heavily affected by war. It has a population of about 68,000 and is also home to a university, just like State College.

“We share a profound aspiration to see the nation of Ukraine triumph over tyranny and to welcome a new era of peace,” Nanes said. “We look forward to enriching the lives of the people of both of out believed communities through cultural, economic, educational, agricultural, spiritual, and civic exchanges now and in the future.”

The ceremony is open to the public. For folks that can’t attend in person, there’s an option to register to attend virtually.