Charity Clean-up Walk Through Shimogamo Shrine

NOVEMBER 16, 2007

Dear Friends,

The Kamogawa Church will help sponsor the charity event explained below. We humbly pray that during this holiday season you can consider the plight of these disadvantaged children and make a pledge towards this very worthy cause. Any amount of time or money would be greatly appreciated.

Kyoto Orphanage Charity Cleanup

On Sunday, December 9th, 2007 at 1:30 p.m. the students of FriendsWorld/Global College will be participating in a Clean Up Walk through Shimogamo Jinja and along the Kamogawa to help raise awareness about the environment as well as to raise money for the Karyo-en Orphanage in Kyoto.

Karyo-en is located in the Shimogamo area and houses 20 girls and 18 boys between the ages of 3 and 17 who have been abandoned by their parents, in most cases because they have remarried or somehow changed their lifestyles in a way that did not leave room for their children. Some children are of mixed blood and were abandoned when their mothers remarried into a Japanese family.

Karyo-en is subsidized by the Japanese government and its most basic needs, such as for food, clothing and adult supervision are minimally provided, but as you can imagine, the children's lives are far from complete. In the past few years, some of the students at Friends World/Global College have brought food, clothing, books and toys to them as well as spent time
playing with them and teaching them English.

This semester, one of our students who has been interning there, thought to raise money for computers and an internet connection for them. Although this will in no way come close to filling the gap left by the absence of family, on- line computers will give the children a way to connect to the rest of the world.

We are asking the children at Karyo-en to participate in this clean up walk with us to help empower them and demonstrate they can make a difference in their own lives as well as in the lives of others. We are hoping to raise money to purchase new and/or used computers that have a wireless internet connections, to buy equipment to set up the connection and to pay for it on a monthly basis. We are planning to continue this fundraising drive when necessary to buy additional computers or replace broken or out of date ones and to support the monthly internet connection charges.

We hope that you will help us by offering whatever donation you can. Any support, no matter how small, will be appreciated, so if your children would like to participate in their own name by contributing along with you- even just a few hundred yen- we will be grateful. This is not to say that we are not looking for larger donations- only that we hope that everyone can contribute an amount with which they are comfortable. We would also love to have you join with us in the cleanup, and ask your friends, family and colleagues to be sponsors too. The more money we can raise, the more computers we can buy and the longer we can support the internet connection.

Please let us know how much you would like to pledge by Sunday, December 9. And please suggest to your family-especially your children and your friends- that they participate. Also, if you could help by forwarding this email to anyone who you think might be interested in helping, we would be much obliged.

Here are some of the different ways in which you can help:

• Donate money (any amount would be appreciated) by sponsoring the students and children from the orphanage who will be picking up trash in Shimogamo Jinja and along the Kamogawa.
• Participate in the cleanup walk and/or after-party with the children.
• Donate any used computers you have that have wireless capability and are in good condition.
  
• Forward this message to people on your mailing list who you think may contribute to this very worthy cause.
• Start your own fundraising drive by telling your friends about this and asking for their help in any of the listed ways.

Regarding method of payment for this charity event, we would like to collect all pledges and make a joint contribution through the Kamogawa Church. If you agree to this method of payment, please inform me the amount you would like to pledge, and we can deduct that amount from your October pay (payment to be made December 10th) or November pay (payment to be made January 10th).

If you would prefer to send a contribution directly, please check the details below.

Donations can be sent either by mail to:

Friends World/Global College
1-287 Akasaka Cho
Kinugasa, Kita-ku
Kyoto 603-8486

or can be deposited into our account at:

Bank of Kyoto (Kyoto Ginko)
Kinkakuji Branch
Branch code: 165
Futsu Account number: 553079
Account name: Global College Japan Center
Barbara Stein

Overseas contributions can be sent to the above school address by an international postal order which can be obtained at any US post office.

Thank you so much for your kind consideration and generous support.

Very sincerely yours,

Daniel P. Arakelian

DECEMBER 18, 2007

Last week students participated in a Clean Up Walk through Shimogamo Shrine and along the Kamogawa to help raise money for the Karyo-en Orphanage in Kyoto as well as to raise awareness about the environment. This was followed with a Christmas Party and games at the orphanage.

Some pictures taken by Meaghan Edert.