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Sending love to Japan

Though it’s the result of a tragedy, organizers are hoping to keep positive feelings at the centre of a benefit this Sunday for those in the disaster-stricken city of Onagawa.
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To Japan With Love organizer Kim Osika holds up a poster for the Sunday event. The event will take place at the Prestige Lakeside Resort from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Though it’s the result of a tragedy, organizers are hoping to keep positive feelings at the centre of a benefit this Sunday for those in the disaster-stricken city of Onagawa.

Organized by the minds behind Nelson’s ongoing paper crane pin campaign, To Japan With Love will feature an all-day lineup of live music and children’s activities, an artisans market, and the origami that has become almost synonymous with disaster-relief efforts in the city.

The event runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Prestige Lakeside Resort.

“Pretty much every dollar is going to Japan,” says coordinator Kim Osika. “Everything is a donation. The artisans won’t be making a donation unless they offer, but their table fees will be going to the fund.”

The coastal city was hard-hit by the earthquake and tsunami which swept the country earlier this month. Though it’s not Nelson’s official sister city, the two communities have historical and emotional ties. Delegations of schoolchildren have visited Nelson for the past eight years, and Onagawa was home to a monument commemorating Nelson-born World War II hero Hampton Gray.

Osika and music coordinator Misuzu Hizuka have been pulling the event together for about a week, inviting musicians, vendors and children’s performers as they went. The response has been quite positive, and the pair have a full lineup of performers ready to play 45-minute sets.

“Everyone seemed very eager to join in,” she says, adding there seems to be strong community support for the people of Onagawa. “It seems like everybody’s aware of it and feels that connection to them, definitely.”

That connection will also be highlighted Sunday.

“A lady from the community is creating a big display of information about Japan and Onagawa, and I’m going to hopefully get some information from the host families too, about their students,” Osika says. “Photos and maybe little stories.”

Also on display will be the 1,000 large cranes, or senbazuru, folded in the weeks since the disaster. Those who haven’t joined in the folding at this point can learn to create their own cranes during the fundraiser, or purchase a tiny crane pin for a donation of $1 or more.

The City of Nelson has pledged to match funds raised by the crane campaign, up to $10,000, and Osika is hoping the Sunday event will put them closer to the maximum number.

“It would be great if we could come up with $10,000 one way or the other, and probably the sooner the better,” she says.

“If we come up with more than that, so much the better. We’re just going to keep going and do as much as we can.”