Community Corner

Our Region Responds to Crisis in Japan

Residents waited for word that friends were safe and raised money to help the relief effort after the devastating earthquake and tsunami.

Want to know what your neighbors are doing in response to the disaster in Japan, and how you can help? Patch found some answers.

--Westminster local editor Kym Byrnes who, while studying abroad in Japan, felt the tremors of last Friday’s quake nearly 400 miles southwest of where the temblor hit. “All I felt was a sensation that I was swaying back and forth,” he said. “My parents told me that several of my aunts called, crying, concerned for my safety.”

--Catonsville resident Kanji Takeno, a teacher at Towson University, has family and friends and former students in Japan, and told the Catonsville Times:  “The Japanese people appreciate what the American people are doing.”

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--Some news reports raise questions about whether Americans should donate to Japan, which is not, according to the New York Times,  “impoverished Haiti.” Baltimore Sun journalist Luke Broadwater weighed in on this discussion, urging people to donate, saying “Yes, there are poorer countries elsewhere in the world. But that doesn't mean this tragedy in Japan is any less a tragedy. “

--Constantine Vaporis, program director for the newly created Asian Studies program, an interdisciplinary approach at University of Maryland Baltimore County, said he’s heard harrowing reports from the friends in Japan he’s made during the nearly 30 years he’s studied the country. “There are old people who have been saved from the disaster, but are dying because they are not getting enough food and water to them,” he told Patch Friday. “It’s difficult to understand how that could be happening in a place like Japan.”

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--UMBC will have a Japan Disaster Awareness Week on campus, scheduled for March 30 to April 6. Activities include a fundraiser March 29 organized by the UMBC Japanese Culture Club where people can buy an origami red rose key chain to be placed on a cell phone, key or backpack for $3. Money will go to relief efforts.

 

Do you have a fundraiser or unique idea for helping the victims of the earthquake? E-mail Lisa Rossi at lisa.rossi@patch.com to let us know.


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