After the March 11th earthquake in the Tohoku Region of Japan and subsequent tsunami, the face of my town, Yamamoto in Miyagi Prefecture, was forever changed. With over 600 dead, more than 200 people still missing, and 2,500+ people living in schools and other shelters because their houses were either washed away or collapsed, my town will take years to recover. And on top of all this the Fukushima Nuclear Plant 64km (40 miles) south of my town lost containment and has put people's health in jeopardy with threat of radiation. But even with all of these problems, people in town still want to move forward.
In order to help in that effort, I created the Yamamoto Fund collect donations to help rebuild the damaged schools in town and aid students who lost their houses in the tsunami. The money I hope to collect will go to Yamamoto Town's Board of Education where they will distribute the money among the schools to make repairs and buy supplies.
With the help of Rotary International I was able to open bank accounts in both the US and Japan to collect funds worldwide. Rotary can collect the funds in multiple places, and since they have agreed to open bank accounts in my name and manage the accounts, the collected money can transfered to a Japanese Rotary Club (I am working with the Koshigaya Higashi Club) before being directly transfered to my town via wire.
