http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=146480808749798
one of the way, you can do your share, send socks together with care letters to Japan.
Here are the details:
http://www.facebook.com/socksforjapan?ref=nf#!/event.php?eid=146480808749798
Quote
American author Jason Kelly, who lives in Sano, Japan, is collecting socks for earthquake victims. He writes:
Here’s a way you can help Japan, directly and meaningfully.
Hundreds of my readers in the United States and other parts of the world have asked me how they can help the victims of the devastating earthquake that struck Japan on March 11. There are many places to donate money, and that’s a wonderful thing to do, but direct aid is also cherished by victims.
My office location is perfect for managing a direct-aid operation because it’s close enough to the primary damage zone that we can physically get there to help, but far enough away that mail delivery is working. So we quickly set ourselves up to run this operation, called Socks for Japan.
Guidelines:
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Send only new socks.
All human beings are comforted by a fresh, clean pair of socks. Other advantages socks offer this operation: their sizes are easy, they don’t break, people need lots of them in disastrous times without running water, people can keep them forever and remember that somebody from far away cared. Please do not send any other items of clothing, food, etc. Just socks, but go ahead and choose nice ones that will brighten somebody’s day. -
Group similar socks in one package.
To help our inventory management, put all socks of one type in a single package. For example, “men’s large,” “girls’ medium,” “boys’ small,” “baby girls’,” and so on. Different colors and styles are fine in the same package, but keep the gender and sizes consistent, please. If you include several different groups in a single box, please pack the groups in clear bags with a description enclosed, facing out. -
List package contents on the package.
To help our inventory management, write on the outside of the package exactly what’s inside. For example, “ten pairs, men’s medium socks” or “one pair, girl’s small socks” and so on. This will enable us to quickly group inventory for efficient distribution without opening packages. -
Enclose a short care letter. Japanese people treasure letters, especially ones from foreigners. Victims of the 1995 Hanshin quake in Kobe said that care letters were among the most uplifting items they received. If you enclose a care letter, provide a copy of it for each pair of socks you send. This will enable us to hand each recipient of your socks a letter from you. Please keep your letter brief. You can save us time by enclosing a translation of your letter into Japanese, which you can make easily at Google Translate, then copy, paste, and print the result to attach to each copy of your English version. Machine translations are imperfect so be sure to send your English version in case we need to tidy up the Japanese. If you send only English, we’ll translate it to Japanese and include your information that the recipient can use to respond later if they would like. No guarantee on that, of course, and any replies will probably arrive months or possibly more than a year later. We’ll translate replies from Japanese to English.
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Write your email address on the package. The most efficient way for us to keep in touch with you, and track the status of your package once we receive it, is via your email address. Please write it on the outside of your package so we can communicate with you without opening the package.
Please ship your package to my office:
Jason Kelly
Helping Angels : Socks for Japan
Plaza Kei 101
Wakamatsu-cho 615-6
Sano, Tochigi 327-0846
Japan
Thank you for your support! When your package arrives, we’ll send a note to you at the email address you wrote on it.
unquote
there is a foreigner in japan that is trying to do something for the people there. and since he is ‘on his own’… it is not an organisation like red cross or something. due to logistics , he can only send socks to the people there. care letters would be good.
donating $$ to red cross is good, but that and sending socks do not have to be mutually exclusive.
i thought it would good, since we are part of the 'early learning ’ community to encourage young kids to learn to give at an early age. young kids can choose the socks and guide them to write letters to the people in japan. sure, they can donate part of their pocket $$ too…
Hi everyone, just wanted to remind everyone that socks are still being distributed in shelters. (you can read all about it in Jason’s blogs)
Yesterday my daughter colored care letters and we sent 4 pairs of socks, packaged in two flat enveloppes, shipping wasn’t too easy.
We also donated a little money to the red cross.
Hopefully the care letters and the socks will brighten someone’s day!