Berkeley, CA—Cragmont Elementary School Community adopts Otsuchi Elementary School in northeastern Japan to offer aid, support, and comfort after twin disasters of earthquake and tsunami.
Cragmont Elementary School Community in Berkeley has taken action to help the people of Japan after the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the coastal town of Otsuchi in Iwate prefecture. A group of Cragmont parents, led by Japanese-natives Saori Russell, Akiko Cutlip, and Haruna Kubota, decided to take the message of Japan’s twin natural disasters to the students of Cragmont School and ask them to remember the terrible impact that March 11th had, in particular, on children. Cragmont students and families now want to help through a small gesture of support. A group of Cragmont parents initiated “A Thousand Cranes for Japan” Project to raise money, and send letters of support along with a thousand handmade Origami paper cranes to Otsuchi Elementary School.
Although Russell herself (as well as several other Cragmont parents), has family near Fukushima, where the nuclear power plant disaster occurred, the group decided to adopt the small elementary school in Otsuchi, because students there have a direct connection with the Cragmont community. Another parent, Craig Strang, has a friend and colleague, Professor Tsuyoshi Sasaki of Tokyo University of Marine Science & Technology whose family lived in Otsuchi at the time of the disaster. Sasaki drove back to Otsuchi the day after the quake, not knowing whether his family had survived. He eventually found his wife and two children in a shelter. Sasaki described on the phone to Russell his children’s eyewitness description of their school bursting into flames less then 10 minutes after they had evacuated the school in response to the tsunami alarm. Minutes later, a 30-foot wave washed over the school and the entire town. Most of the Otsuchi children survived because they were in school and were well prepared for a disaster of this kind. Other residents of Otsuchi were not so lucky. More than ten thousand in the town of 15,000 perished or are still missing, including the town’s mayor. For many of Otsuchi’s children, the devastation is unimaginable. They’ve lost parents and other family members, schoolmates, their school, and their homes.
According to Sasaki, the residents of Otsuchi will rebuild the school in some form and prepare for classes in the next month. It is this spirit that the parents at Cragmont want their children to see and understand, and to support. The Thousand Cranes Project is designed to be a fundraiser for a fellow Japanese school about the same size as Cragmont, but more importantly to emphasize to Berkeley children the need for compassion, resiliency, and community support for people facing a disaster.
The goals of “A Thousand Cranes for Japan” are to: raise thousands of dollars to send to the children of Otsuchi Elementary; have Cragmont students write letters of support; and teach them about the importance of solidarity. Many parents worry that what happened in Otsuchi could happen here in the Bay Area. Cragmont School was itself closed and radically renovated to repair damage from the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. In addition to the fundraising at Cragmont, students will be given the chance to make paper cranes which will be threaded and sent to the children of Otsuchi from Berkeley.
For more information about the Cragmont School’s “A Thousand Cranes For Japan” project, contact project organizers:
Saori Russell: helpotsuchi@gmail.com tel: (415) 902-0343
Craig Strang: cstrang@berkeley.edu
Nicole Watanabe: nicolesensei@hotmail.co.jp
To follow us on our blog that documents this amazing community-to- community project, go to:
The Project is collecting donations throughout April. 100% of donations will go directly to the Otsuchi Elementary School.
To make donations directly, send check payable to:
Otsuchi Recovery Fund
Mail it to:
Otsuchi Recovery Fund
c/o Saori Russell
2410 Valley Street
Berkeley, CA 94702
About the Otsuchi Recovery Fund: The Otsuchi Recovery Fund is a segregated account of The Fort Bragg Otsuchi Cultural Exchange Association (FBOCEA), a local organization that for ten years has organized exchanges of groups of high school students between Fort Bragg and Otsuchi, Japan. All funds donated to the Otsuchi Recovery Fund will go directly to the municipal government of Otsuchi. It has been the partner in Japan on the exchange program. The fund will be used for the most pressing needs of the people of Otsuchi. 100% of your donation will go to Otsuchi. No overhead costs are taken out. FBOCEA is a not for profit public benefit corporation. Donations are tax deductible.
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