We are a group of seven young people (six foreign and one Japanese) living in different parts of Fukushima, Japan, who after experiencing the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and witnessing first-hand the effect it had on the people and places we had come to care about, decided we needed to help. Three weeks after the earthquake and tsunami, wondering about the best way to meaningfully contribute to the relief effort and becoming frustrated as volunteer opportunities quickly dried up, a few of us took a trip to the coastal town of Soma to inspect the damage to our friend Tsukasa’s home. On the way back from Soma, we began thinking about ways we could repay Tsukasa personally for his hospitality. We met again as a group that night, shared our ideas, and soon after hearts for haragama was born.
our mission statement
We are collecting donations large and small to help the relief efforts in Soma, Fukushima. Our goal is to provide aid to our friend Tsukasa’s kindergarten, Haragama Youchien. We are aiming to raise roughly $29,000, or 2,500,000 Yen. These funds will go directly towards providing the resources Haragama Youchien requires to care for the students and families who lost their homes, possessions and incomes in the March 11 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.
