Three seventh-grade students at Islander Middle School collected and folded more than 1,000 origami paper cranes to benefit Japan earthquake and tsunami relief last weekend.
Elisabeth Williams was finishing performances of “Singin’ In the Rain” at Studio East in Kirkland when she saw two boxes filled with paper cranes.
She had been making cranes after IMS Leadership classes, as teacher Becky Mullvain and WEB Leaders responded to a Japan relief project of Seattle’s Bezos Family Foundation.
The foundation’s Students Rebuild/Japan partnered with DoSomething.org to encourage students to support Japanese peers.
Paper cranes will launch a $200,000 donation from the foundation at $2 per crane with a goal of 100,000 cranes made by students worldwide.
Sabrina Kwan, a leadership student and Gillian Dewhurst, helped Williams fold many cranes and brought the total of their efforts to over 1,000 pieces.
Studio East presented “A Thousand Cranes” in February and the cast folded cranes for set decoration. The theater training program was eager to join in the relief effort.
The donation will go to Architecture for Humanity’s reconstruction projects in Japan, and the cranes will be woven into an art installation.
Prepaid shipping labels for boxes of 50 or more cranes are available by e-mailing info@studentsrebuild.org. For more information, go to http://studentsrebuild.org/japan/.
