Charity Blossoms

The cherry tree is the bride

the tossed bouquet; I caught with a glance.

This was one of many haikus written by Whitney Smith that was presented on a bulletin board along with statistics and facts about the Japanese tsunami on March 11th for the Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival. 

The Japanese Cherry Blossom Picnic, inside the DAC, showed students why the cherry blossom is the most celebrated tree because it announces that spring is here.  The blossoming of the trees creates pandemonium.  Also, if there is a full bloom on the trees then that means that there will be bountiful crop to come.  The meaning of the cherry blossoms is beauty of life and fleeting of nature.  The festival varies each year, but it usually begins in mid March and ends in April.  Most people don't know how bad the tsunami really was and how much it effects everyone in the world, since most of our items come from Japan

“After the tsunami, we thought it would be a good idea to have an event to help support Japan.” smiled Megan Rivas, one of the members of the DAC.

Throughout the event, they showed many videos that were taken by citizens of the tsunami while it was happening.  In the videos you saw a car driving on a water stricken road and then five seconds later you see water following the car.  Soon after that you see many cars float on by, followed by an upside down boat, and then after four minutes, you see a fully in tact building get swept by.  After the tsunami and the many earthquakes, the toll for people missing is 13,145 and 14,117 are dead. 

There was also three OSU Japanese students, Ayako Tabeya, Reimi Kawada, and Yuki Kawakami that attended and were able to answer any questions that people had about the cherry blossom tradition. 

The food that they served for lunch was a typical Japanese style meal.  It was vegetable yakisoba noodles, cabbage lettuce salad with miso dressing and for dessert, green tea ice cream! 

This is the first year for the Japanese Cherry Blossom Picnic and they hope to make it an annual event.  

All throughout the ceiling there were 1,000 folded origami cranes exactly. 

“We began folding the cranes on April 1^st and have done 1,000 of them.”,  Rivas said.  “We made sure we did 1,000 exactly.  Once you’ve folded 1,000 cranes, you make a wish and our wish is for everyone to reach out and help others.”  

The crane is one of the mystical and holy creatures throughout Japan and is said that they live to be 1,000 years old.   For a traditional Japanese wedding there are 1,000 cranes wishing the new couple 1,000 years of happiness.  Also when a baby is born, people give the baby 1,000 cranes to wish the child a long life filled with good luck.

They even had a representative from the Red Cross there.  Lynda Lopez Morton was  accepting donations of any kind; cash, check, or credit to go towards the Japanese Relief Fund. 

“The only things that we are not able to accept are item donations.  We have to turn a lot of things down and have to tell people that they can hold a yard sale instead and then they can donate all of the proceeds from that to the Red Cross.” Lopez Morton stated. 

If anyone would like to become a Red Cross volunteer, want free disaster preparedness information, or wants to donate money than they can do so by their website www.redcross.org or they can go to the main office in Albany at 3388 SW Pacific Blvd.  


 At-a-glance:

What: Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival
Where: Diversity Achievement Center
Why: To inform students about the Japanese tsunami and how they can help
To donate: Red Cross
                  3388 SW Pacific Blvd
                  Albany, Oregon 97321