December 14th Monterey Park awoke to the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Monterey Park Rotary President David Anantasin wondered what can a small club do to help and how to tie this to the 2012-13 theme of “Peace Through Service.” He remembered the story about a girl (Sadako Sasaki), who was dying from leukemia caused by the bomb dropped during World War II on Hiroshima. According to Japanese legend if she could make a thousand paper cranes, she would be granted a wish. Her wish was to live. She made 644 cranes before she passed away. Her community completed the project in her memory. They went on to create a statue of Sadako holding a giant golden origami crane in Hiroshima Peace Park so that her memory lives on.

President David with 30 Rotarians and Interactors worked on two Saturdays in January to create a mobile of 1,000 origami cranes in memory of Sandy Hook’s victims. Students and teachers at Repetto Elementary School also made 1,000 origami cranes to create another mobile. The teachers used this project to teach the children about compassion for others and reaching out in peace to others. These cranes will be displayed in the Monterey Park Bruggemeyer Library Children’s Room and from there the cranes will be shipped to Sandy Hook as a memorial of what they, and we all lost.

For further information contact Monterey Park Rotary President David Anantasin (213) 268-5911 or E-mail him at spgraphics76@gmail.com

Written by: Linda Wilson