Four weeks remain for Eastside students to apply for the Bellevue Sister Cities Association (BSCA) summer exchange program.

For over 30 years, BSCA has sponsored the summer exchange of area high school students — especially juniors — who spend up to four weeks with a host family in one of Bellevue’s four sister cities and then host a high-schooler here from that family for a similar length of time.

The local student’s family normally covers just the first $500 of the roundtrip airfare, with BSCA picking up the difference. In exceptional cases, BSCA may help out if that $500 is difficult for the family to cover. The other main expense is hosting the foreign student in a home for up to four weeks.

Bellevue’s sister cities are Yao, in Osaka Japan; Hualien on the east coast of Taiwan; Liepaja (lee-ya-pa-ya) on Latvia’s Baltic Coast, and Kladno just a short distance outside of Prague in the Czech Republic. One student will be selected for each sister city.

More information and forms can be found by contacting BSCA president Hugh Burleson at 425-746-9675 or hughburleson@comcast.net