A Few Quick Tidbits

I'll have a longer post with detailed updates on our latest fundraising and aid efforts in the next few days, but in the meantime we'd like to share a few things with you.  The first is is a scan of a Japanese newspaper article on recovery efforts in Minamisanriku which focuses on Tokura Elementary School, one of the schools your donations have helped:

And here is a card we received from the students at that same school thanking us for our assistance:

Things have slowed down somewhat of late, with life getting back to normal for many people outside the tsunami zone, but for people in places like Minamisanriku normality is still a long way away.  Thanks to your donations it's a bit closer than it was, however, and we want you to know how grateful people are for the help they've received.

Shizugawa HS Supply Deliveries

In addition to the previously mentioned deliveries of school supplies to hard-hit elementary schools in Tagajo and Shiogama, we were also able recently to deliver 900 notebooks and other school supplies to Shizugawa High School in the town of Minamisanriku, Miyagi.  Along with the stationary, we also delivered hand-written messages of encouragement contributed by Jane Lightburn and her students in the Liberal Arts Division of Aichi Gakuin University in Aichi-ken.  Many thanks to Ms. Lightburn and company for their contribution - psychological support is as important as material aid in helping people recover.

Although we don't have photos of the Tagajo and Shiogama deliveries, you can check out photos from this delivery here.

School Supplies Project Update

Apologies for the long delay between updates.  It has taken some time for our initial projects to bear fruit and as school has resumed here we have less time for things like volunteer activities.  But at last, there is some news to report - we've distributed the first batch of school supplies we purchased with your donations to students at Urato Elementary School in Shiogama, Miyagi, as well as students at several elementary schools in the neighboring town of Tagajo.  Unfortunately, I don't have pictures yet, but our colleagues Yoko and Shoko report that the children were very happy and wanted to thank all of you who helped them.

We have also arranged to deliver some school supplies to students who attended Togura Elementary School
in Minamisanriku.  As anyone who has followed the news closely knows, Minamisanriku was perhaps the hardest hit of any town in Japan, and many people there literally lost everything but the clothes on their backs - helping these people is more important than anything.  The supplies should be delivered early next month.

Hopefully I will be able to update the Flickr page with photos soon.  Keep checking for new updates.

Fundraising/Initial Project Update

Tonight, Kyle and I met with the Japanese members of MEESA for our weekly meeting.  A number of things were discussed, but here's a rundown on points of interest for people who have contributed or donated:

1.)The Teachers For Japan initiative has just in the past day or so cleared US$10,000 in donations collected, which has come from small individual donations from people in five different countries.  About US$1500 worth has already been spent on our initial project.  We hope in the near future to be able to increase this amount via greater exposure.

2.)Said $1500 has been used to purchase 350 sets of basic school supplies for elementary school students in Miyagi.  The sets were purchased at discounted prices from local suppliers and also include some donated items.  We would like to thank the following companies/individuals for their generous assistance in helping to obtain these supplies:

iropen.com　http://iropen.com/
Daiichi Progress Inc.　http://www.ichipro.co.jp/
Seisa Kokusai High School　http://www.seisa.ed.jp/
Ms. Eri Osada

The sets comprise rulers, pencils, pens, erasers, notebooks, pencil leads, and protractors, all of which are necessary items for elementary school students to have.  We hope to donate them shortly to needy students at an elementary school in one of the tsunami-stricken areas of Miyagi, and to tell you more about the specific students your donation has helped when we do so.

3.)We have also accepted donations of some additional school supplies/educational items including pencil cases and three boxes of books.  These will also be donated to local schools.

4.)We have set out several additional projects on which to spend the remainder of the money, including earmarking donations to schools to fix particular problems the government reconstruction effort may not cover and identifying and assisting needy kindergarten students with tuition costs.  More information will be forthcoming on these projects as they develop.

I will post more updates, including photos and videos, to the blog, Facebook page, YouTube channel, etc. over the next few days.  Please keep checking in!

-Greg

The "PayPal Is Displaying In Japanese" Problem

We've had numerous reports of the PayPal page coming up in Japanese when people click on the button on the website to donate, and after much inquiry we think we have identified the problem.  I will be putting my limited HTML and web design skills toward attempting to resolve it shortly and hopefully by tomorrow it will no longer be an issue.  In the meantime, if you see a bunch of Japanese text pop up on the PayPal page, don't fret - you're in the right place as long as you have the following at the top of the page:

NPO法人宮城英語教育支援協会(MEESA)

To the right of this text should be a small putton that says either the name of your language or "日本語".  This is a button to toggle between languages and if you click on it you should be able to change the language in which donation instructions are displayed.

-Greg

UPDATE:

Fixing this problem has turned out to require some rather annoying and roundabout HTML coding which might take a bit of time to get working correctly. In order to avoid bringing down the channels for donations that DO work, I'm going to avoid updating the site until I get all the bugs worked out - hopefully that will be within the next few days. - Greg

School Supplies Project Update

Members of MEESA have been hard at work putting the money we have collected so far to use, and their efforts are bearing fruit on this project.  They have made an arrangement to buy some notebooks, pencils, and other supplies at cost and in bulk and are going to have them shipped up here to Sendai, where they will then be distributed to children currently living in shelters in Natori.  School will begin by the end of the month in Miyagi, even for children who lost their homes, so the supplies will be needed soon, and this way families that lost everything they own will not have to worry about paying for them.

We hope to have more specific information on how many supplies we deliver and which schools/students we deliver them too shortly.  Thanks for helping us (and these kids) out!

Major Website Update

I've just completed a fairly major overhaul of the main page of the website - as has been suggested by several friends I've added additional PayPal links via which people can donate in currencies other than US dollars, as well as links to MEESA's homepage and blog, new photos, and a more streamlined look.  In the coming days, I intend to make additional improvements, including adding a donation tracker that will indicate how much we have collected, more information on our initial projects, and publishing Japanese and possibly Spanish versions of the page.  I've also approved the initial round of guestbook entries we've received.  Kyle and I will also be doing some interviews over the next few days to try to raise the profile of the site and get more money coming in.  Keep on the lookout for updates over the next few days!

-Greg