When Jocelyn Vetrano set out to find a way for the Holley Court Terrace senior residential community to assist the relief efforts in Japan following the devastating tsunami that hit the country in March, she wasn’t sure where to start. She knew it would require lots of community outreach, but with whom?
In the end, Vetrano, who works as a community outreach coordinator for the assisted living community, found plenty of partnerships. Outside of the residents at Holley Court Terrace, she found plenty of people from local restaurants, businesses, even the high school, who wanted to help out.
She teamed up with Downtown Oak Park, Visit Oak Park, and Sushi House, to name a few, to organize the “Hope for Japan” fundraiser, which will be held in the Great Room at Holley Court Terrace on May 24. The event includes live music performed by the local Verismo Opera Club and a silent auction with items provided by local vendors such as the Oak Park Wine Cellar.
To help Holley Court Terrace residents forge even more of a connection with locals, understand the Japanese culture, and create something designed to express both hope and condolences for the Japanese people, Vetrano looked to Oak Park and River Forest High School.
Through a random Internet search of Japan-affiliated clubs in the area, she stumbled on the high school’s Japan Club. She hadn’t even known that Japanese was an option for foreign language study at the school.
Though surprised, Vetrano was thrilled with her discovery. She called Yoko Schmadeke a Japanese teacher at the high school and Japan Club supervisor, to see if the students would be interested in working on a joint fundraising effort with residents at Holley Court Terrace. Schmadeke thought it would be a great way for her students to make a local connection.
The Japanese enthusiasts, old and young, teamed up for a paper crane-making event, which was also held in the Great Room at Holley Court Terrace last week.
“We found this organization in which we can send the cranes over to Japan,” explained Vetrano. “[In] the Japanese culture, instead of giving flowers at a funeral, these are very symbolic.”
In fact, she found an organization in Japan that will take paper crane donations and spread the hopeful symbol to others.
Attendees at the Hope for Japan event will have the option to purchase a crane for one dollar and then write an inspirational message on the wing. The cranes will therefore raise money, and once sent to the organizations overseas, serve to spread hope through the country as it struggles to rebuild.
At the crane-making event, Schmadeke said it’s important to carry on the Japan connection, which is significant at OPRF because the high school has a sister school in Japan. The school sends students to study in Oak Park every year, and OPRF students travel to Japan for month-long study programs every other year.
It was during one of their weekly meetings that Japan Club members learned the paper-folding techniques that helped them guide their neighbors at Holley Court Terrace through the crane-making endeavor.
Vetrano said she’s hoping for a good turnout at the Hope for Japan event, which will feature a silent auction along with some smaller-ticket items, food from local establishments like Sushi House and Marion Street Cheese Market, and a cash bar. If all goes well, she’s aiming to raise $5,000, every dollar of which will go to the American Red Cross disaster relief effort.
“We have so many residents who want to be involved and want to be entrenched in the community,” said Vetrano, of her initial motivation behind getting Holley Court Terrace involved in the fundraiser. “I just was like, you know, we have to do something. We’re in the hub of Oak Park. And I think Oak Park is such a philanthropic type of community.”