Preschool hosts fundraiser for Japan

The Japanese earthquake and tsunami has weighed heavily on the hearts of teachers, students and parents at St. Matthew’s Evangelical Lutheran Preschool in Niles, so on Sunday they decided to do something about it.

The small school, which has both Japanese- and English-language classes, draws much of its population from suburbs with substantial Japanese populations like Arlington Heights, Schaumburg and Palatine.

On Sunday, the preschool hosted a fundraiser at Mitsuwa market in Arlington Heights to help their peers across the Pacific.

Minori Yamaki, who directs the Japanese-language preschool, said the morning the disaster struck, her students already knew what happened when they arrived at school.

“Their parents talked with them about it. And when the kids came to school, they were all saying, ‘What can we do about it?’” she said.

They decided that they could use their talents for song and dance.

One of the event’s organizers, Schaumburg resident and St. Matthew’s teacher Yoko Tadokoro, said Mitsuwa agreed to host the event.

On Sunday, the children, wearing bandannas and robes, sang a graduation song, “Thank You and Farewell,” in honor of the Japanese children who could not graduate this month, which is the typical month for graduations in Japan. The students also performed a dance in which they banged a drum in accompaniment.

At the store’s entrance, customers were asked to donate to the relief effort. People also wove origami cranes, a form of prayer.

Assistant teacher Satoi Takasaki, of Des Plaines, said Mitsuwa was an ideal venue.

“This is a Japanese marketplace. We knew there would be a lot of Japanese people, and we knew that there were so many people that wanted to donate and didn’t know where to start,” he said.

One of the parents, Buffalo Grove resident Masako Mayahara, said “We felt helpless,” upon hearing the news from Japan. “We thought, ‘If there was anything we can do...”

Aogu Matsuoka, a St. Matthew’s parent who also has a child at Futabakai Japanese School in Arlington Heights, said he hasn’t let his children see all the pictures of the earthquake and tsunami disaster.

“They have seen some that are making them worry,” he said. They love to go to Japan. Now they’re saying, ‘I’m afraid.’”

Based on what he is reading and hearing, Matsuoka said it seems like the money is coming in slower than the other tragedies, like the earthquake in Haiti.

“Maybe that is because people think Japan is wealthy,” he said.

One parent, Makiko Sato, from Iwaki, Japan, one of the areas affected, was overcome with emotion as she described how her parents, who live near a nuclear power plant, had to be evacuated.

“All the kids (from the nearby schools) are safe, but the town, my brother said, is a ghost town, because everybody evacuated,” she said, adding that a tragedy like this could happen to anybody. “I think that’s what they are trying to do (at the school) is teach kids to support each other and help each other.”