This is what volunteer work does for you… 😉
What Volunteer Work does for You
2
Tag Archives: Volunteer Work
Preparation for Flea Market
Some new friends that are arranging with relief help for Tohoku earthquake victims ar preparing a charity flea market this weekend. After work today, Chie and I went there to help them bring all the stuff to the flea market place.
Chie got there by car and I rode my bike there from the office, as it was the quickest way for me to get there. They have already packed everything into the car when I arrived, but at least I helped unloading the 3 cars that we needed to transport everything.
Once the cars were unload everything had to be arranged. Chie and I helped as much as we could, but we were dealing with people in the design and apparel business. Meaning, our (especially my) sense for how to present clothing in order to sell it was not living up to their standards 🙂
After a while I realized that and got to work with things I can do as good as the next guy or girl… Unfolding cardboard boxes and collecting and organizing plastic bags 😛
At 9:30 pm Chie and I decided we could not contribute much more. Besides, we had not had anything to eat since lunch time as we went directly from work to helping out preparing the charity flea market. Quite late we entered Yasaka for some yummy yaki-tori and some fun small talk with the owner Go-kun.
Busy Day
Today was a busy day. Chie has been working a lot lately so to help out I have cooked all food today. Break fast and dinner. Besides that I have updated all our iPads and iPod Touches, though that is more fun work than hard work 😉
In between breakfast and dinner, Chie and I also went to Tokyu Store for grocery shopping. And after that we went to Don Quijote to buy groceries, water and other things to bring to the Tohoku area. Actually we have been doing this during the whole week as some things like water is limited to 1-2 2L bottles per person.
These things we will bring to a person we have come in contact with, Ishihara-san, that has organized collection of groceries and other items to ship them to the Tohoku area for people that are now living in shelters after the earthquake. After our vacation to Hawaii in little over a week I will try to engage more in this kind of activities. Ishihara-san is arranging for trucks to go to a small place in the Tohoku area once a week so there will be plenty of opportunities to help out.
Survival Dinner
What do you eat to survive in Tokyo in the aftermath of earthquakes, tsunamis, and nuclear power plant failures and crises? Bacon and tomato sauce pasta with parmesan cheese and salad is quite OK.
As I wrote earlier, we are doing what we can to keep going as normal as possible. But it feels strange living in luxury like this when you know that not far away there are more than 450,000 people living in shelters with limited food supplies, limited water supplies and with poor sanitary facilities.
Today I tried to donate money to Red Cross via Google, but did not succeed. So tomorrow I am going to my bank to transfer the money to the Japanese Red Cross Society. Please, if you have the means then consider given a donation following any of the above links.
Second mission I have is to do volunteer work. I am looking for the possibility now but have not found anything so far. Sony seems to be planing some volunteer work for employees within the Sony Group so that would be one possibility.