Japan, and my attempts to help

As you all know, last Friday, Japan was hit with a 9.0 earthquake, triggering tsunamis and aftershocks that have continued since. Even though I’m not in Japan now, I lived there for a year and a half, and very much consider it like a second home. All of my friends live there, and so I spent most of the last weekend going through Facebook and Twitter to make sure they were all accounted for. I was lucky, most of my friends live in Tokyo, and those who don’t were still able to keep safe, or weren’t affected.

To be honest, I wasn’t able to watch the news at all until Monday evening. I’d been reading news articles, and keeping up with Twitter, but I couldn’t deal with the visuals to go with the written. Even after watching 5 minutes of NHK, I had to turn over and go back to watching National Geographic, because it was too easy to think about the schools I’d taught at before, the people who were affected, and the realization that the Japan I knew before has probably changed.

Since Friday, I’ve been wracking my brain on how I can try and help. Of course, I plan to donate money, but I wanted to find a way to make my donation a little more personal.

In the past, I’ve been using Moo Printing to sell greeting cards of my photography from Japan and Korea. I’ve decided I’m going to be printing a special, 5-card set, where all of the proceeds will go to the Red Cross. The sets will be $15 USD, shipping included worldwide, for these 5 cards. The more people who order, the greater your donation will be. For example, if 5 people purchase a set, then the donation from these cards will be $5 each. However, if I can manage to get twenty people to order cards, the donation amount doubles to $10 (the more who order, the less printing is, the more the proceeds are.)

The five photos chosen are five things that, to me, highlight why I love Japan, and why I will continue to support Japan in it’s time of need and long after. I hope that you are able to contribute, if not with purchasing a set of these cards, then with your own donations to organizations like the Red Cross.

 

 

 

If you are interested in purchasing a set, please click on the Paypal button below. Orders will be taken until Friday, March 25th, 12 pm (noon) Korean time. (To check the time in Korea right now, click here.)

Thank you for your generosity. Please pass this on to friends, and encourage people to buy as well!