| | We had such a nice weather and that was what we thought until this very morning. Too bad, it rained. So the event had moved to inside the Andy Murphy Midtown Neighborhood Center, and therefore the Koinobori the flying carp unfortunately wouldn’t be flying under a blue sky as it meant to be. Nevertheless, just to make today’s festival feeling special, we hung the red carp right next our flag as if it were swimming in the air.
We brought extra table for Origami because it got always crowded in the past. We also added a craft of Kazaguruma the wind mill hoping kids would enjoy making their own. It was easy to make however I found that using glue was a little messy work for small kids. Finding the perfect paper for wind mill was also a difficult task and that still needs a little more research to improve the paper quality. Besides the Origami table we sold Japanese utensils and crafts including pretty hand-made items Yuriko-san brought. The crowds were slowly becoming heavier and heavier, and by the time when the youth dance was performing the center was pretty much filled with local people. This event requires long hours dedication by limited number of volunteers but it’s very important for us since this is a great opportunity to raise fund for our organization. We were busy, as we expected, and the 4 hours of hard work was always rewarded by lots of happy faces of kids and parents.
Our many thanks exclusively goes to Geoff-san who is the lead organizer of this event. With the fund we raised today, maybe we could make bigger Koinobori for the next year.
Midori
Team leader | | 良い天気だど正しく今日の朝まで思っていましたが結局雨になりました。と言う分けで残念ながらイベントはAndy Murphy Midtown Neighborhoodセンターに移動されました。従ってせっかく青空の下で悠々と泳ぐはずだった赤い鯉のぼりはしかし代わりに会の旗の横に泳いでいる様に見せかけて飾って今日のイベントが少しでもスペシャルになるようにしました。
折り紙はいつも大変人気があって込み合うので今年は余分のテーブルを持ってきました。今回は子供達が自分の風車を作って楽しめる様にクラフトも加えてみました。作るのは確かに簡単ではありますが、どうも小さい子供には糊を使うのはちょっと大変だったみたいです。風車にピッタシの紙を見つけるのもなかなか大変で、もう少し捜してみる必要がありそうです。折り紙デスクの横で由利子さんの手作りの作品を含むクラフツとか食器を売りました。人出はどんどん増え続け、若者グループによるダンスが出演する頃にはセンターは観客で一杯でした。これは少人数のボランティアが長時間貢献しないといけない結構タフなイベントですが、会にとっては資金作りのもってもない機会なので大変重要です。予測した通り大変忙しくて4時間振り回されましたが、子供達それから親御さんからも大変喜ばれましたので十分やりがいがありました。
イベントのリード企画者のジェフさんに特に感謝致します。今日の資金で願わくば来年はもっと大きな鯉のぼりを用意出来ればと期待しています。
新江 緑
チームリーダー | |
