On May 13, 2011, two months after the Tokai Earthquake shook my home country, I flew to Japan with relief supplies from Park City.

Park City rose to the occasion. The community raised approximately $6,000. Spirit wear was donated from public and private schools. The money was sent to Red Cross Japan via American Red Cross, and 80 lbs. of spirit wear traveled with me.

At 5:00 a.m. on May 15th, I boarded a van with a crew of 5 volunteers who have been driving up north every weekend to aid in the clean up efforts of a small seaside town named Ishinomaki. The small crew had developed a trusting relationship over the last seven weeks with one particular relief center situated in a kindergarten. Thanks to the continued volunteerism of the crew, I was able to complete my mission without becoming a registered volunteer.

Every 'habitable' space is occupied in Japan. There aren't big fields where volunteers can park their vehicles to operate their relief effort. When kind hearts from all over Japan upped and traveled up north, every affected municipality had to deal with the additional traffic and volunteers who didn't think ahead about food, water, and space. Any and all habitable rooms above street level was overflowing with the tsunami victims. With rubble EVERYWHERE, there was NO place to park vehicles.

As we drove into the little town of Ishinomaki, the experienced crew kept commenting "Wow, this area is all cleaned up." ??? What area is all cleaned up? I didn't see any "cleaned up" spaces. But yes, our van was proceeding ahead on the single lane road. THAT's what had been cleaned up. As my eyes and mind adjusted, I  realized that the  mountains of rubble did show some 'order,' junk piled up "neatly" for safety.