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This article was prepared for the March 2, 2005 issue of U.S. 1
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‘Waves’ of Tsunami Relief
by Euna Kwon Brossman
When you talk about having a direct and profound effect on something
you can be said to be "making waves." And now volunteers throughout
the Princeton community are quite literally "making waves" to raise
money for the December 26 tsunami relief effort and to memorialize the
hundreds of thousands of who died.
The waves in this case are origami waves, folded by hand at libraries,
schools, religious centers, and community centers. The goal is to have
members of the community fold at least 150,000 waves, one for each
life lost in the disaster. A $1 contribution is suggested for each
wave folded, and all money collected will be donated to CARE USA’s
Earthquake and Tsunami Relief and Rehabilitation Fund. The next
origami event takes place Saturday, March 5, at the Arts Council of
Princeton, and events are planned throughout the area, culminating on
Saturday, April 23, at Communiversity, the annual town and gown
festival in downtown Princeton.
"The numbers boggle the mind," says Bonnie Bernstein, education
program director at the Cotsen Children’s Library on the Princeton
University campus, where the "Making Waves" project was born and
nurtured. "We can’t fathom numbers that large. We were all devastated
when some 3,000 Americans died at the World Trade Center on September
11. These numbers are exponential to us. But when you break it down to
one wave, one person, and you see so many waves folded, you get a
sense of the real dimension of the tragedy because there it is right
in front of you."
The "Making Waves" initiative harks back to a Japanese legend that
says that a person who folds a thousand paper cranes will live a long
life. A 12-year-old girl named Sadako, exposed to radiation in the
bombing of Hiroshima, began folding paper cranes from her hospital
bed, hoping to regain her health. She died before she finished, having
folded close to 700 paper cranes, and others took up her effort. Since
then, the folding of origami cranes has become an international symbol
of peace and compassion.
The inspiration of using paper waves as a variation on the paper crane
to raise money for tsunami victims sprang from a Young Artisan
Workshop held at the Cotsen Children’s Library in January, part of the
Rare Books and Special Collections Division housed in the Firestone
Library at Princeton University. Jennifer and Megan Kao, twin sisters
who are students at Grover Middle School in West Windsor, were leading
a workshop on origami paper folding when another child came in with a
half-folded origami wave and wanted help finishing it.
‘I don’t think she was consciously trying to fold a tsunami," says
Bernstein, "but unconsciously she had made the connection and she was
intrigued. We’re doing this to remind ourselves that each life is
precious. I’ve seen the thousands of cranes in the Peace Park in
Hiroshima, and every year children throughout the world create these
crane garlands and drape them over the statue of Sadako. It’s moving
to see these thousands of objects. I see the origami not just as the
individual object but as a collective display of individually folded
paper that takes time and care."
Bernstein says there is a certain beauty in watching people come
together to fold. "They chat and make friends. It’s a community
building project in itself because it helps us come together to
remember another community that needs our help."
Bernstein grew up in northern New Jersey and graduated from the
Jonathan Dayton Regional High School in Springfield. Her father ran a
series of small family businesses and her mother was a travel agent. A
graduate of Wesleyan University in Connecticut, she’s been part of the
Cotsen Library’s education and outreach effort for the last seven
years. Her husband, Hank Dobin, is associate dean of the college at
Community service is very much in her family’s blood. Her younger son,
Noah Dobin-Bernstein, will be a junior at Yale in the fall when he
returns from a year off. He worked on the presidential campaign and
has been traveling in South America. Older son Dan Dobin-Bernstein
graduated from Emory University last year and is working in
Washington, D.C., for a nonprofit agency called College Summit. The
program helps high school students identified as needing assistance in
applying for college.
After a February 8 kick-off event, "Making Waves" generated 500 more
folded pieces of origami and $350 was raised at an event at the Cotsen
Library on February 12. "It’s going to take many of these kinds of
events," says Bernstein. "We’re starting to hear from community
groups, the Human Resources Council in West Windsor, McCaffrey’s.
We’re hoping to see more of these business community partnerships."
Bernstein is hoping that the "Making Waves" movement will take on a
grassroots energy and gain momentum. She acknowledges the support and
involvement of individuals who are making a difference, people like
Princeton resident Nicole Katz, who has loaned part of a private
origami exhibit once displayed at the Natural History Musuem in New
York for display at the Frist Campus Center. She lauds Katz’ daughter,
Sarah, a Princeton Day School student, who has been helping as a
folding instructor at the Princeton Senior Resource Center.
Bernstein says that Jane Reeves, a member of Origami USA, a local
chapter of the national paper-folding association, simply showed up
one day at the library to volunteer. A skilled folder, she spent an
entire day folding and teaching others how. "We’re all learning about
the art of another culture," says Bernstein, "and that’s why we’re
getting such wonderful participation."
There is Keiko Ono, a Japanese language instructor at Princeton
University and also a teacher at the Princeton Japanese School, who,
along with Tara McGowan, a Princeton graduate, artist, and storyteller
and frequent presenter at Cotsen, have taught parents how to fold at
the Japanese school. Those parents in turn will volunteer at various
folding events throughout the community. "We’re hoping that folding
activities take place everywhere – at sleepovers, at birthday parties,
shopping centers, schools, libraries. We’re not just using origami
paper. The waves stand up better if they’re made of copier paper and
we’re trying to use the brightest colors we can."
Each venue has provided paper for folding. People who are coming to
fold are encouraged to bring origami paper as well. "A wave is not an
easy object to fold but with step-by-step instructions everybody can
do it in five minutes," says Bernstein. The organization is looking
for donations to cover some of the additional folding. "We’ll have to
turn people into folding machines if we want to reach our goal so
we’ll be looking for monetary contributions to reach the corresponding
She says everyone doesn’t have to contribute money, especially at the
schools – another reason why they have to look for outside donations.
"We want to make sure that everybody can participate whether or not
they can contribute the dollars. We want them to fold. It’s a
community effort and however you can contribute is valued."
As the waves are made some are stored in boxes at the Cotsen Library.
Others are put on display at places like the Frist Center where
display cases show the waves piling up. There are art installations
planned around town. Artist Heather Barrows will design an
installation at the Princeton Public Library showcasing the waves as
they’re made. And at the culmination of "Making Waves" at
Communiversity on April 23, there will be a booth for wavefolding and
a display as well.
Bernstein encourages everyone to come out and help. Whether you are 5
or 95, it’s a way to get involved, make a difference, and have fun.
"Many of the kids take particular pleasure in mastering the folding
technique and sharing it with others," Bernstein says.
"I think they enjoy being part of something big. Children often get
left out of fundraising efforts because it’s hard to for them to do
something significant. Origami folding is something everybody can do.
We’ve got four and five-year-olds folding whales and boats with a
little bit of help. It’s elegant."
‘Making Waves," a series of origami folding events to raise funds for
the December 26 tsunami relief effort include the following venues.
For information on organizing a "Making Waves" event on your own or in
conjunction with a school or organization, visit the
Saturday, March 5, 2 to 3:30 p.m, Arts Council of Princeton, 102
Thursday, March 10, 12:30 p.m., Princeton Senior Resource Center,
Suzanne Patterson Center, 45 Stockton Street.
Saturday, March 19, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Princeton University Art
Saturday, March 19, 1 to 5 p.m., McCaffrey’s, 335 Princeton-Hightstown
Rd., West Windsor.
Saturday, April 2, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Princeton Public Library 65
Saturday, April 23, noon to 4 p.m., Communiversity, downtown
On December 26, 2004, I awoke in the cocoon of my sister’s guest room
bed, a place I sleep better than anywhere in the world. The aroma of
freshly-ground politically-correct Guatamalan coffee reached me,
buried under mountains of covers. If this wasn’t the bosom of my
family, my family has no bosom.
I padded past the Christmas tree into the kitchen where my sister and
brother-in-law were glued to the laptop. "There’s been a tsunami," my
sister said, "and 50,000 people are dead." Little did we know that
that number of dead and missing would rise in the days and weeks to
come to close to 290,000 in 11 different countries.
In the ensuing days, I became secretly obsessed with the tsunami,
stealing away to the convenience store at the end of my street to
supposedly buy milk, but really I devoured People and Time and
Newsweek. I read about over-achieving 11-year-olds who had bakes sales
and car washes, all to contribute $300 to relief efforts. I assigned a
story about a group of Princeton-area cultural organizations and
schools holding a series of events to raise $150,000 by making 150,000
origami "waves of relief," a touching twist on the Japanese thousand
paper cranes legend (see page 34).
Clearly someone was writing checks but it wasn’t me. I was still
reeling from the story about the Australian father who tied his kids
to tree branches with beach towels to save them from the tsunami and
the NPR story I heard about a makeshift orphanage set up for children
who had lost both parents. How could my measly $50 or $100 donation do
anything? I was frozen with guilt and frustration.
Then on January 19, I received an E-mail from Trudi Rohla, my former
boss at Rohla Communications and Dick Clark Corporate Productions, the
PR and corporate events companies she used to head up in Carnegie
Center in the late 1980s. Rohla, now Trudi Behr, lives in Los Angeles.
In her E-mail she wrote: "Here is what is up with me – after the
tsunami I couldn’t stand it. Volunteered at the International Medical
Corps, which happens to have its HQ in Santa Monica. Within 20 minutes
I got HIRED and am donating my salary back. I mean, how can you bitch
about anything (like all this sucky rain we’ve had) when all you are
dealing with is people who lost everything in seconds – everything."
She continued to send me E-mails about IMC. On February 5, she wrote,
"Unlike other aid organizations like Doctors Without Borders that
swoop in to help in an emergency and then leave, IMC stays. Our goal
is not only to provide immediate relief, but to help rebuild and
restore that which has been lost. Training is an essential component
of our work as we believe success is realized only when the local
population is able to resume caring for their own."
She attached a February 2 field report from Neil Joyce, an MD who is
working in the severely damaged central teaching hospital in Banda
Aceh, the most hard-hit region in Sumatra. "The only way we are going
to get more Acehnese doctors here is to train them," writes Joyce.
"Unfortunately 65 of 220 senior medical students have lost either
their homes or a parent. These students cannot continue their studies
as they have no place to live and cannot afford school living
expenses. The University Medical School has waived their tuition but
the students still need to find a way to live while they are doing
their clinical clerkships." He explains that just $1,000 will support
a medical student for a year.
In a February 16 press release, Nancy Aossey, IMC’s CEO states:
"Approximately 80 percent of Banda Aceh’s healthcare workers were
killed in the tsunami. If these students can finish their studies, for
the next 30 or 40 years they will be the pillars of the restored
healthcare system in this devastated area." Two days earlier, on
February 14, USA Today published a profile of Aossey that tells how
she "shepherded (IMC) from three-employee start-up (in 1985) to
$100-million plus relief organization with a staff of roughly 8,000
working around the globe."
On February 23 Behr E-mailed me government statistics showing that the
number of displaced people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Maldives,
Malaysia, Somalia, and Seychelles has topped 1 million, making the
need for trained medical care all the more fervent.
Behr’s E-mails had penetrated my frozen state. I realized why I hadn’t
written a check. I couldn’t see where my money was going. Learning
about the work of IMC, along with the validity factor that Behr
provided, reassured me that my money will go to help a real person – a
medical student who will receive training or perhaps a child who comes
to that teaching hospital in need of medical care.
Donations of $1,000 (or aggregates of $1,000 by a group) can be
earmarked to support a medical student. Donations in any amount are
also welcome to help support the work of IMC. Visit
— Jamie Saxon
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