Disaster Recovery Volunteer Project

Thank you very much for your continued generous support.

In October HOT volunteers participated in a Day of Service in Tokyo by exhibiting photographs of HOT volunteer projects in Tohoku and the many wonderful people in Tohoku HOT volunteers have been able to support with your generous donations.  Through this exhibition, we were able to share the stories of the people of Tohoku and the positive impact volunteers can have on those still trying to rebuild their lives after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.  It also encouraged new volunteers to join our Tohoku projects.

There continue to be labor shortages in certain parts of Tohoku that are making it very hard for local farmers to rebuild their lives, run their farms and grow their businesses as the limited number of available workers are deployed on large scale infrastructure and other construction projects. They and their families simply cannot do all the hard labor-intensive work themselves.  They need the continued support of volunteers. With your generous contributions, HOT volunteers have been able to continue to support a local farmer, Saito-san, and the New Rice Center in Yamamoto-cho.  The New Rice Center gives rice farmers in the Yamamoto-cho area a place to store equipment and supplies and to work, get together and share information. It also contains new rice thrashing equipment that local farmers can use when harvesting rice and packaging the harvested rice for the market.

In October, 15 HOT volunteers, including teenagers who live in a children’s home in the Tokyo area, helped Saito-san clear fields after harvesting vegetables.  They also enjoyed providing Saito-san and his wife with a chance to relax for a little bit by preparing a BBQ using his locally-grown vegetables. In November, 15 HOT volunteers, including teenagers from the children’s home, helped the New Rice Center by attacking a mountain of rice chaff, the protective casings separated from rice grains during the thrashing process.  The rice chaff has to be manually bagged so that it can be taken away and used as fertilizer.  It is hard to imagine how long it would take local farmers to bag and remove all of the rice chaff without the support of volunteers.   

Going forward, we will continue to organize more volunteer trips to further support the New Rice Center and Saito-san, his wife and others in Tohoku as they work hard to further rebuild their lives.  We also are coordinating a job shadowing program with Saito-san and other local Tohoku farmers for youths who must leave the children’s home when they turn 18.  This will connect local Tohoku farmers who are looking for young people to work with in rebuilding the local agricultural economy and youths who lack family and other support and who are looking for jobs.

In November, 15 HOT volunteers helped with the hotate matsuri (scallop festival) in Ogatsu by running the scallop booth which gave festival attendees the chance to enjoy grilled fresh oysters.  Prior to the earthquake and tsunami, the hotate matsuri was a very popular annual event.  While so much of Ogatsu has yet to be reconstructed and while so many former residents are still waiting to return to their beloved hometown, it was so encouraging to see so many smiling faces in Ogatsu for the day to enjoy local fresh scallops.  Thank you for making this possible.

Going forward and so long as people are still living in temporary housing, we also will continue to hold cafes and events at temporary housing sites in Tohoku.  And we will travel to Ogatsu to help maintain the community house (which was built with the help of your generous donations), to clean local beaches so that people from the greater Sendai area will continue to visit the area and thereby support the local economy and to participate in special events like the hotate matsuri to encourage those who are still waiting to resume their lives in Ogatsu and the surrounding communities.

None of this would be possible without your generous support. Thank you in advance for your continued support and for touching the hearts and souls of so many people in Tohoku.