KIRKSVILLE, MO. -- On the one year anniversary of the tsunami and 9.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Japan, we decided to contact Japanese students attending Truman State University. Right after the quake, several of them launched a massive fundraising campaign which helped raised thousands of dollars to support their fellow countrymen.
Reina Koyano is finishing her last year of studies at Truman. She is a business communications major. She remembers the 9.0 earthquake that rocked Japan on March 11, 2011 like it was yesterday. That's because she saw it happen right before her eyes while Skyping with a friend in Tokyo.
"I was just sitting there for like the whole minute or two watching everything fall apart in this tiny screen," said Koyano. "It was such a weird feeling. It was really scary."
Koyano said her friend left the conversation to go check on her family. During that time, Koyano said she saw all of the furniture and walls in her friend's home fall apart.
Many of Koyano's Japanese colleagues attending Truman State had taken a road trip to Florida to enjoy the sunny beaches of Miami. But, the vacation soon ended as they found out on Facebook and television that a major natural disaster had struck their homeland. Many told KTVO they didn't believe it at first and thought it was just like any other earthquake that hits Japan occasionally...until they saw the images of the disaster happening on live television.
Koyano contacted many of them and urged them to unite and come up with a plan for how they could help their country, even though they were thousands of miles away.
"There was no way for me to just take a break from the semester and go home. Even if I went home, I'm sure I couldn't go help directly so I just kept brainstorming for things that we could do to support and fundraising was the main thing."
They named their fundraiser the "Heal Japan" campaign. It included asking Wal-Mart and Hy-Vee shoppers for donations, selling t-shirts, bracelets, and bumper stickers. Also, the students set up donation boxes around campus and in the community at restaurants like China Palace and Nuhrachi.
Within two months, before the semester ended, they said they raised a little over $9,000. The students said the money was sent to the American Red Cross, which in turn handed it over to the Japan Red Cross for recovery efforts.
"We were so surprised how people were willing to make donations, buy all these things for people they really never met," said Koyano.
"I know Kirksville people are really nice to us but I wasn't expecting this much and I felt people were being very helpful," said Moe Ichinogo. "When I tell them I'm from Japan, people were like are you ok even though I'm a stranger."
In regards to the one year anniversary, Koyano told me that people in Tokyo don't seem to be too concerned about the radiation and are actually quite "frank" about it. She said when she returned home in the summer of 2011, a hair stylist told her," Yea we may have radiation in the air so just make sure you wash your hair good." Koyano herself said she is confused about what the solution should be because she said the country needs to have nuclear power plants and there are conflicting reports in the media as to what level of radiation in the air is considered unsafe. Other students agreed with her and said regardless, the entire world can learn from the mistakes that were made in the world's worst nuclear crisis in the past quarter of a century.
Meanwhile in Japan, on Sunday, residents gathered in tears, prayers, and a moment of silence to honor the thousands that were killed. More than 3,000 are still missing and 16,000 died. CNN reports that the rebuilding process is the greatest challenge for Japan since World War II. The damage is estimated at $300 billion.
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forKTVO