Follow Up

Some amazing efforts on behalf of Japan require me to follow-up on my post of March 18 (Madness of All Kinds). First, my remarkable sister, a fourth-grade teacher in California, saw my blog post and took the idea of paper-crane-making to her school. Her principal and fellow teachers immediately got behind the idea, and merged it with a fundraiser that they had already planned. When my sister emailed the news to me, I was excited and eager to follow in her footsteps, so I emailed one of my daughter's fourth grade teachers to discuss a similar fundraiser, based on the article that she had brought to school.

Lo and behold, the effort took off - as if on crane's wings. The PTO, principal, and teachers at our school immediately embraced the idea of the fundraiser using paper cranes, which will either be sold or donated back to be sent to the children of Japan. Several parents have come forward to volunteer their services and research possible outlets for our donations. After spring break, the art teacher plans to do a unit on origami for the fourth and fifth grades, allowing my daughter's class to participate in teaching the background information. Amazing. Our home has turned into origami - central as my daughter is so excited to teach us all the fine art of crane-making. We already have 13 birds ready to go. Needless to say, my heart is warmed to the point of boiling over.

On another follow-up note, my youngest son decided not to make a picture for Japan, but to color one for the greeter at CostCo instead. He knew we were headed for CostCo that morning (had to get individually wrapped treats for preschool) and anticipated seeing our favorite greeter, who always says hi and draws smiley faces on our receipts. So D colored in a fabulous picture and when we entered the store I flashed my AmEx photo card and he handed over his artwork. The gentleman was quite surprised. "For me?" he asked. Daniel nodded and explained the coloring scheme before we headed off to do our shopping. On our way out, we encountered the same man, who congratulated D again on being a fine artist and pulled me aside to say, "I've been here for ten years and nobody has ever done anything like that for me before. I am really touched." I nodded a general affirmative, too choked-up to make a reasonable response, and left the store with my artist. He may be a whirlwind but he has a heart of gold, and I am so grateful.