Feel Free to Copy and Paste this if you want to use it!! The donation info for the people in the US is on the bottom:
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
My name is Andras Molnar, an English teacher on the JET program currently working in Yamamoto, Japan, which is a coastal town in southern Miyagi Prefecture, an area recently affected by the earthquake and tsunami.
On March 11, when the largest earthquake in the history of Japan rocked all of northern Honshu, I was sitting in the staff room with the rest of the faculty at Yamashita Junior High School after the graduation ceremony for our 9th graders who are becoming high school students in April. Suddenly, the entire room started shaking violently, and we all took cover under our desks. Printers, computers and everything else imaginable flew off shelves, and we took a chance to run outside during a lull in the shaking. After several after-shocks, some teachers decided to go check on their homes and families, only to return 10 minutes later with reports of a tsunami surging through town.
Shortly thereafter, people from town started coming to my school to seek shelter after the disaster. As a designated disaster shelter site, my school had been structurally reinforced to withstand heavy earthquakes, but even with the reinforced design there were many structural damages due to the sheer magnitude of the tremors. Over the next several hours and into the night, people appeared at school in soaking wet clothing having crawled out of their cars and ruined houses in 20 degree weather. That was the end of day one.
Over the next several days, my school dealt with food shortages, freezing weather, and the sheer emotional impact of mothers searching for children and families searching the ruined remains of their houses for usable items, if their houses had not been completely washed away by the ocean. Without electricity or running water, faculty and volunteers helped the elderly go to the bathroom, students took turns cleaning bathrooms and carrying buckets of rain water from the pool to flush the toilets; people helped people survive.
Among all this, on March 13 the nuclear power plant in Fukushima suffered a serious system failure and started leaking radiation into the air. My town is 40 miles north of the reactor, putting it outside the Japanese recommended evacuation limit of 18 miles, but inside the international recommended limit of 50 miles. It is still undetermined if there is an actual affect on my community, but due to gas shortages and people having nowhere else to go, the vast majority of people are staying in town.
On March 17, I made the decision to leave my town and friends to seek shelter in Tokyo, which was the hardest decision I ever made in my life. I did not want to leave the community that had given me so much and the students who I had taught for the past 2 years, but the danger of fallout was too great. Because the train station in town was washed away by the tsunami, I hitchhiked 45 miles to Sendai City, the largest city in northern Japan, and managed to catch a bus sponsored by the Australian Government to evacuate foreign nationals. I safely arrived in Tokyo on March 18th, and after a month living in Tokyo, I returned to Yamamoto on April 16th.
Over a quarter of my town was washed away, at least a quarter of the remaining has to be condemned. 640 people lost their lives, 130 are still missing, and 2000 homeless live in schools, gyms, tents or cars, not including people who have moved in with relatives. I lost 7 students to the tsunami. Electic, water and phone service have been restored to half the town, but the part damaged by the tsunami will not be restored for a long time. Despite all this, people want to move forward.
I am setting up a fund to aid for the reconstruction of Yamamoto. My primary concern is students, and the money I hope to collect would go to reconstruction of the schools, textbooks, and uniforms for children that lost everything in the tsunami. I am collecting money in both the United States and Japan with the help of Rotary International, which has set up a special account designated specifically for Donations to Yamamoto. The Central Bucks Rotary Club in Doylestown, PA and the Koshigaya Higashi Rotary in Saitama, Japan are the Rotary Clubs that agreed to help me. Please open your hearts and give a donation to my town.
Thank you for your support,
Andras Molnar
Donations by check can be made out to Central Bucks Rotary with a note letting us know the donation is for the Yamamoto Fund. Send checks to Central Bucks Rotary, c/o Eric Lepping, 41 Eastwoods Circle, Doylestown PA 18901.
Donations can also be made through our PayPal link. Make sure that donors note that the donation is for the Yamamoto Fund. If that link does not work, go to http://www.centralbucksrotary.com/ and scroll down to the very bottom of the page.
日本にいらっしゃる募金したいかたは、下の口座に募金してください。でも、する前に一応わたしのほうへ連絡ください
androman85@gmail.com
お手紙です：
ご覧になるみんなへ
私は宮城県の山元町のALTのモルナー・アンドラスです。２年前から現在まで、宮城県の南の方にある山元町の中学校二校、小学校五校で英語を教えています。山元町では英語の先生としての活動だけではなく、太鼓サークルに入って演奏したり、住民のための英語教室をしたりしました。とても楽しかったです。
でも３月１１日に私の港の町に津波がきて、みんなの人生を変えてしまいました。
朝、中学校の卒業式があってから、中学生が下校して先生方が職員室でやっと落ち着きました。その時地震が始まって、棚からパソコン、プリンター、など様々なものが落ちてきました。ちょっと時間が立ってから、机の下からでて、家の様子を見に行きたい先生方が何人かで車に乗って帰りました。でも５分も立たずに学校に戻ってきて「津波がきた！」と言われました。
それから学校が避難所になりました。最初の日はたくさん住民が入ってきました。真夜中でも家や車から逃げてきて、洋服がぬれている人も何人もいました。四日目に町に自衛隊がきて、食べ物を運んでくれましたが、七日目の電気が戻ってくるまで本当に暗くて寒かったです。
山元町は今のところ食べ物もあるし、電気や毛布もあるし、生活ができます。ただ、町の4分の1は津波で更地になってしまい、町内の小学校二校はもう使えないし、家が流された学生は制服や教科書もなく、とても困っています。
私は外国人ですが、山元町をとても愛しています。こんなにひどい地震、津波、または原発の問題は悪夢のような状態で、現実とは思いたくない気持ちでいっぱいです。私にできることは非常に少ないですが、できれば募金を集めて、学生たちの生活を少しでも楽にしてあげたいと思っています。体育館は使えないし、野球場は自衛隊のベース（基地）になっているし、なかなか普段の生活に簡単に戻れる状態ではありません。でも徐々に普通の生活に戻れるようになった時、教科書やノート、制服やジャージがないと子どもたちはつらいと思います。
今回ロータリー・クラブと協力して、私の縁のある土地、アメリカ、関西、関東、八戸で募金をお願いしています。留学生の友達、他のALTの英語の先生、自分のアメリカの高校や大学、友達や家族に募金をお願いしています。できれば、２０万円を集めたいと思っています。八戸の皆さんも募金をしてくだされば、山元町の子供たちが本当に助かります。みなさんのご協力をどうぞよろしくお願いいたします。
Andras Molnar
