Congratulations to 2025 Northern California Cherry Blossom Queen Kristi Satomi Ando and the entire 2025 Court!
Being involved with the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival Queen Program has been a uniquely meaningful experience for CTSC. On 4/6/2025, several committee members attended the Queen Program Event. That night, we cheered on all the candidates including our sponsoree Nanami.
We were so impressed by all the candidates' speeches and talents, and most of all, their messages.
Queen Kristi Satomi Ando and her Court will make a special appearance at the 41st Cupertino Cherry Blossom Festival.
For more information, please visit the festival website at
The NCCBF Queen Program was well attended by many notable VIPs including the Consul Osumi and Mrs. Ozumi from the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco.
For more details about the program, please visit the NCCBF Queen Program website.
CTSC and Nanami: A Great Match
We are very excited to have taken on a new community involvement project unlike those that we have been a part of before - sponsoring a candidate for the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival Queen Program!
Our candidate, Nanami Sumimoto, is a 25-year-old from Cupertino, and her first festival she attended was the Cupertino Cherry Blossom Festival.
Nanami is passionate about science and the arts. A graduate of the University of Toronto with an Honours Bachelor of Science in Music and Human Biology, she balances her love for flute performance with a career as a Research Associate in Infectious Disease Research. Nanami is deeply involved in her community, contributing to organizations like the Peninsula Symphonic Band and Yu-Ai Kai Senior Center. She is passionate about expanding world language programs in Bay Area high schools and aspires to advance cancer research through epigenetic screening and circulating biomarkers. She enjoys playing music, reading, baking, and crocheting in her free time.
For 58 years, the NCCBF Queen Program has been an esteemed program that celebrates leadership, community involvement, and the rich cultural heritage of the Japanese American community. We are honored to support this tradition and our incredible candidate on her journey.
A bit of history between CTSC and the NCCBF Queen Program:
In 2010, the Queen and her Court were invited as VIPs of the Cupertino Cherry Blossom Festival and has since been established as an annual tradition. Incidentally, the Consul General of Japan in San Francisco also started appearing as an honored guest at the Cupertino Cherry Blossom Festival in 2010.
In 2013, CTSC President Alysa Sakkas was on the judging panel on Program Night.
[Update: 4.6.2025]
Congratulations to 2025 Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival Queen
In Nanami's self-introduction to the NCCBF Queen Program, she writes:
The Northern California Nikkei community has been a crucial part of my life in my youth, helping me connect with my cultural identity and motivating me to navigate the new English-speaking environment at school.
The first event I attended after moving to the US in March 2010 was the Cherry Blossom Festival. Although I had little knowledge of English, the people I met at the festival welcomed me with open arms. My strongest early memory in the US is of the origami booth, where two Japanese American ladies encouraged me, as a fifth grader, to teach them how to fold a crane. Despite our language barrier, where I knew only simple words like "yes" and "no," and they had only a few basic Japanese words, origami brought us together. That festival is special to me because, for the first time, it gave me a profound sense of belonging in a country where everything felt entirely foreign up to that point.
This community is a source of empowerment for me. Just as origami helped me connect with those ladies at the festival, I feel a strong responsibility to advocate for celebrating our rich culture for other community members. As a Japanese woman, I would like to use the Queen Program as a platform to give back to the community that has been supporting me since I moved to the US in my youth.
[3.5.2025] CTSC President Alysa Sakkas joined a virtual Q&A session with all the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival Queen Program candidates.
On April 6th, 2025, several of the CTSC Committe Members will be attending the coveted NCCBF Program Night Event to support and cheer for Nanami. Please return to check out our photos.
Photos: Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival Queen and Court at the Cupertino Cherry Blossom Festival
We are thrilled to be part of this year’s NCCBF Queen Program and proud to sponsor Nanami Sumimoto as one of the candidates!
Nanami shares a special connection with CTSC, not just one but two! First, her hometown is Cupertino, and second, the Cupertino Cherry Blossom Festival was the very first festival she attended.
We wish Nanami an incredible journey in the NCCBF Queen Program and beyond!
Learn more about Nanami on our website: www.CupertinoToyokawa.org and the NCCBF Queen Program website: www.nccbfqueenprogram.org.
