BELLOWS FALLS — Bellows Falls Union High School students made a total of 3,505 paper cranes for the rebuilding efforts in Japan.
The BFUHS Student Council wanted to get the high school involved in a fundraiser for Japan and were looking for ideas. They decided on the idea of students making paper cranes through a project that the University of Vermont is coordinating.
For every paper crane a student makes, Student Rebuild, an organization promoting the Paper Cranes for Japan project working with the Bezos Family Foundation, will donate $2 to Architecture for Humanity's reconstruction efforts in Japan up to $200,000.
The cranes will be taken up to UVM, and then sent to Student Rebuild, where $2 is being donated to Architecture for Humanity's reconstruction efforts for each crane made. The BFUHS students raised $7,010 in total.
The fundraiser coincided with a recent visit by a Japanese drumming group from Hokkaido, Japan, to celebrate Japanese culture and music. The BFUHS auditorium resonated with the deep sounds of Japanese taiko drums as musicians played, danced, and performed theater acts to bring attention to the effects of the earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan.
A Japanese interpreter helped the folk group communicate with the high school students, but songs and chants were otherwise all in Japanese. The students had an opportunity to join the musicians on stage to try their hands at drumming.