When Frank Pratka and daughter Ruby, then 9, traveled to Cuba in 1998, they were beguiled by the people, their warmth and spirit.

That trip inspired Pratka, a 52-year-old labor relations representative, to launch a campaign to find a Cuban sister city for Baltimore.

"We just loved it," Pratka says. "When we came back, we decided we were going to get involved somehow."

In March 2000, Pratka and Baltimorean Marta Pola founded the Baltimore-Cuba Sister City Project in affiliation with the US-Cuba Sister City Association in Pittsburgh.

Last week, the national association granted Pratka and Pola's group the opportunity to be paired with Matanzas, a port city with a population of about 120,000. It has a maritime history similar to Baltimore's, boasts a vibrant arts community and some beautiful architecture that has been carefully restored, Pratka says.

When he returned from Cuba, Pratka also joined a local coalition formed to end the U.S. trade embargo against the communist island in the Caribbean. But he finds the sister city project most appealing "because it's not about politics; it's about people."

Before receiving a Cuban city, the new organization was required to prove its commitment. Core membership grew to 50, yard sales were held to raise money, fliers were distributed at city festivals. With the assistance of an Enoch Pratt librarian, Pratka wrote a history of Baltimore's past links to Cuba, including a once-thriving steamship service between the two cities. The fledgling group's efforts paid off after little more than a year.

So far, the Baltimore-Cuba Sister City Project has not been recognized by Baltimore's official sister cities program, but Pratka is leading a petition drive toward that end.

Pratka's hope is to present the petition to Mayor Martin O'Malley requesting that a sister city proclamation be issued, according it equal status with other alliances formed by the city with 10 municipalities around the world, including Ziamen, China; Genoa, Italy, and Piraeus, Greece. Baltimore's sister city program operates under the umbrella of Sister Cities International, a nonprofit program that has paired more than 1,200 U.S. cities with partner cities in 127 countries around the world.

Under Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, Baltimore extended hospitality to Cuban citizens on several occasions. In 1999, the Orioles were nearly defeated by a Cuban all-star team in Havana. The Cubans clobbered the Orioles at Camden Yards soon after that.

As mayor, Schmoke visited Cuba three times within a year and a half. In addition, Cuban health officials came to Baltimore to learn about American health-care practices.

Baltimore will share Matanzas with Pittsburgh. A nationwide interest in Cuba sister-city programs has placed cities there at a premium, Pratka says.

So far, 14 American municipalities, including Mobile, Ala., and Bloomington, Ind., have been linked with Cuban counterparts, and numerous other programs are in formation. Pennsylvania has been paired with the province of Matanzas.

Pratka and a small delegation of Baltimoreans hope to visit Matanzas, about two hours from Havana, within the next year. There, they will meet their new friends "and get ideas on what they'd like to do," he says.

As with well-established sister-city programs, Baltimore and Matanzas would participate in cultural, civic and professional exchanges, as well as in goodwill gestures as basic as bringing schoolchildren from both municipalities together to learn about their respective worlds.

Pratka is thrilled with his new task. "We were very happy at the way this all worked out. Now we've got serious work to do, but that's what we wanted."