On 21st (Thursday), I, Mayumi Mori and my friend / important team member, Sachiko Yoshimura visited the Consulate General of Japan and gave the money we raised. Our donation will be wired to the Japanese Red Cross Society.
The donated amount was $11,888!
This is about 933,700 yen. We worked so hard to break above the 1 million yen barrier, but unfortunately couldn't. However, we are happy about the amount, because we started the "You Can Do It, Japan!" saying "if we can raise $5,000, wouldn't it be great?"
This huge accomplishment is all because of you,our friends and family joined our charity, and each one of you kindly bought our T-shirts and wristbands. Thank you very much!!
The below is the checks we received from you. I tried to arrange them in a shape of fan for a picture, but there were so many, so it ended up like this.
At the Consulate General, Mr. Shunsuke Chishima, a vice consul, kindly spared his busy time for us and greeted us. We received the receipt, too!
It has a stamp of the Consulate General with the crest of the Japanese government!
After we gave Mr. Chishima the checks, we took commemorative pictures. I gave him a wristband as a small thank-you-gift, and he wore it with a smile.
(from left to right) Mayumi, Mr. Chishima, Sachiko
Finally, he gave us the message below.
"After the earthquake, many people donated money to us, and we appreciated it very much.
We promise you to deliver the donation to the Japanese Red Cross Society securely and responsibly, thanking to your warm consideration.
The victims are still suffered and we believe that the continuous support is essential.
In that sense, you kept calling out help to the American society for a long time not to let the tragedy to fade out, means so much more than the money you raised.
Please continue your hard work!"
So....here we report that we finally delivered the money you kindly donated. Your good will and love will be delivered to the disaster stricken area soon crossing the Pacific Ocean.
We started You Can Do It, Japan! in March. It was a small (really small!) grass root charity by Masami Suzuki in Seattle and I started hoping to raise $5,000.
In fact, Masami wrote like this as our mission in our Facebook page.
To raise money. 5,000..... 8,000....ummm, maybe we have a chance to reach 10,000!?
This means, we successfully reached the dream target of $10,000! (applause, please!!)
We made wristbands and T-shirts to sell to our friends and family, but soon after we started sales, we received the email saying "Where can I buy your products in Hungary?"
So, we set up the Paypal account and developed the system which accepts orders from all over the world. As of today, we shipped our products to 8 countries and regions, the United States, Japan, Canada, Saipan, Hungary, Switzerland, Germany and Singapore.
Yes, we did it!!
But we didn't do it ourselves.
Wecouldn't do it without your generous support.
Thank you!!
Lastly, here's the comment from Masami, the founder of You Can Do It, Japan! project.
"The wristbands and T-shirts you kindly bought from us became this big!
This is exactly what we said in our slogan, "Each individual contribution may be small but together it can be huge!" We are happily surprised by the result.
And now, we are greatly relieved after we successfully delivered the donation.
However, this is just "the First Donation" for us.
The interests to the earthquake in Japan started fading rapidly in American people's minds, we must even work harder, but we are determined to do it!!
Please continue your support and thank you very much!!"
