Pacific children send support
on the wings of paper cranes
By Rick Chernitzer,
Stars and Stripes
Rick Chernitzer / Stars and Stripes
Rachael Jackson, 8, folds a colored paper paper crane Friday at The Sullivans
Elementary School at Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan. |
YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — When American Airlines Flight 77
crashed into the Pentagon, dozens of students and teachers on board lost their lives.
The Sullivans Elementary School wants to honor their memory and help
the healing for their schools in the States.
Sherri Eddowes-Plummer, an educational technologist at the school,
learned about the passengers while browsing through the Internet.
“I found out Flight 77 was full of teachers and students on
their way to California,” she said. They were to participate in a science project.
The school decided to put together special packages for the four
schools affected by Flight 77. The package’s centerpiece will be a thousand handmade
paper cranes.
Eddowes-Plummer said the idea for making paper cranes was inspired by
a Japanese legend of a sick girl. The girl, who suffered from leukemia, believed if she
folded a thousand paper cranes, the gods might grant her a wish.
Eddowes-Plummer said making the cranes helped students share an
understanding of the tragedy.
It’s “a way to relate the event to kids in a personal
way,” she said.
Some students took the task to heart. Third-grader Ryan Su made 100
cranes.
“I wanted to do this a lot,” said the 9-year-old.
“After 100, I was too tired.”
Ila Nevarez, 11, a fifth-grader, also made 100 cranes. She said she
hoped it would bring good luck to the friends and families of victims. Maria Arismendez
said she made 50 cranes at home, and she helped teach younger children at the school how
to make them.
“I just like making them,” Maria, 10, said. “And I
thought the more I made, the better I would feel.”
The school also is holding a silent auction, using donated items to
raise money to send to the schools.
“For them to get something like this from Japan will hopefully
have an impact on them,” she said.
Individuals and commands donated items for the auction, including the
USS Cushing, which donated high-end electronics such as a DVD player and a stereo system.
“We’re hoping that even for the lower-end items, people
will be willing to donate a little bit more,” she said.
The auction runs Monday through Nov. 9. Winners will be called, and
they can make arrangements to pick up and pay for their items.
All the proceeds from the silent auction will be divided evenly among
the four packages, Eddowes-Plummer said.
People also will be able to “adopt-a-crane.” The completed
cranes will be placed in the school’s main office, where anyone can make a donation
and write a personal message across a crane’s wings. The cranes will eventually be
strung together in sets of 1,000.
There also will be a rummage sale in front of the school Saturday to
benefit Afghan children. The sale is 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
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