What sounds like a streamlined slaughtering ritual, in reality is the daikon (i.e., Japanese white radish) harvesting routine of the 20 or so volunteers that answered 2HJ’s call to Okabe on Sunday February 24. They collected over 2 metric tons of daikon (from about 10 tons available on the field), all of which had been delivered to 2HJ’s recipients by February 27, only three days after the volunteers harvested them!

The following Sunday, March 2, a team of children (and their caretakers), aged from elementary to high school, took their turn and pitched in to harvest over 1.5 additional tons of daikon from the field. Coming from several of the homes to which 2HJ provides food, the children enjoyed the rare opportunity of harvesting their own food and eating it fresh from the field. The staff from the various participating children’s homes brought back a bounty of daikon to supplement meals at their agencies.

For 2HJ, it was the first time in its history that the organization literally lived up to its name by harvesting a field of donated vegetables. Due to this year’s early frosts, the usual daikon harvest period was cut short, leaving entire fields of the vegetable to the plough. Fortunately, one field of high-quality, mouth-watering daikon remained for 2HJ to gather.

Looking back, 2HJ’s Executive Director Charles McJilton stated: “I always wanted to bring such an event to life.” But the idea only gained momentum when 2HJ’s staff member Haijima-san revived the connection he had made with Mr. Karasawa (the main driver of this event on the Okabe community’s side) while working for a farmer in Miyazaki, Kyushu, before joining 2HJ. When the two met again after Haijima-san’s return to Tokyo, conversations about the details of vegetable cultivation eventually lead to reflections on if and how there might be opportunities for farming communities to contribute in their own way to 2HJ’s activities.

Farmers invest a tremendous amount of time and effort in growing crops and vegetables, “much like parents raising and educating their kids,” as Mr. Karasawa explains. It gives them a rather nauseous feeling watching the results of their efforts go to waste, be it because there are not enough hands available for harvesting all of it, or due to some follies of the change in season. Consequently, joining forces with 2HJ seemed like an optimal way to kill two birds with one stone: Not only did some of the yet unharvested daikon get harvested, but also there were people happily looking forward to such a highly valued addition to their menu.

Tired, cold, excited, covered from head to toe in soil blown upon us by the marrow-chilling wind and looking forward to dropping by the nearby onsen (i.e., local hot spring) before returning to Tokyo, all volunteers agreed that working in the fields and harvesting daikon with our own hands had taken the stress of city-life, at least temporarily, away from us. And, if only for a few hours, we had made the somewhat surprising discovery that country life was not all about sweet strawberries and gorgeous green meadows. The life of a farmer can be tough—and the strong winds, blinding us at times, forcing us to swallow more than the odd grain of soil and sand, served as a good example of how tough that life can be.

As the first time ran so smoothly and was a positive, educational and last but not least fun experience for all participants, 2HJ hopes to continue this newly set up collaboration with the Okabe agricultural community, and maybe even set up links to other communities in the future.

And, as 2HJ is now looking into converting this originally one-off event into a regular, maybe twice-a-year activity, I am looking forward to another of those rare opportunities where I get to work with my hands. Maybe I will be allowed once more the occasional glimpse to the panorama of the snow-covered Northern Alps rising at the horizon. No doubt at the end of another such day I will again fall into my bed with a rare but soothing, satisfactory feeling of having accomplished a truly productive day.

Writer/Photographer: Pamela Ravasio

Thanks to six schools in the Tokyo area last December, awareness, good will, and thousands of food items were raised for the Harvest Pantry. The American School in Japan (ASIJ) collected 750 kilos, Tokyo Korean School (TKS) 500 kilos, Nishimachi International School over 300 kilos, Camp Zama Middle School 250 kilos, Canadian Academy 280 kilos, and Seisen International School about 200 kilos. 

Second Harvest Japan Executive Director Charles E. McJilton commented, “It is neat to see students make active contributions to the community. It helps them make a connection between their daily lives and those out there in need in Japan. It also reminds them that they can have a positive impact in the community they live in.”

In 2007, TKS doubled the food amount they collected from the previous year. To motivate their elementary students, they gave lottery tickets out for each item brought in and drew three winners at the end of the food drive. In addition, the teachers performed a dance routine to reward the students for collecting more than 2,000 food items.

Photo: Tokyo Korean School

TKS teacher Mark Valens said, “Students have positive memories about donating food to Second Harvest Japan, and they come away feeling good about themselves for making a difference in someone’s life. Nothing is better than that.”

In its sixth year of helping the hungry, ASIJ weighed in heavy. “Loading 750 kilos of food items in 2HJ’s truck was like trying to solve a rubik’s cube,” stated ASIJ Middle School Assistant Principal Meagan Pavey. “The sheer volume of food collected and all four divisions at ASIJ working together as a community were highlights this year.”

Photo: Meagan Pavey

At ASIJ, each division’s student government decided how food would be collected. The middle school’s Student Leadership Team held a competition between homerooms. Mr. Harris’s homeroom won. The group of 13 said, “We all tried our hardest. We thought about the people with no food, and we wanted them to have food for the holiday. Everybody should care about others.”

And it’s easy to do. Here are some pointers to run a successful food drive at your school, club, organization, sports team, or other community group.

• Contact 2HJ in advance to discuss needs and logistics
• Remember people are hungry all year round. Consider organizing food drives multiple times in a year
• Set clear start/end dates
• Quality control: Check collected items during and at the end of the food drive, and remove any expired or opened items. Since these items cannot be distributed, if donated they become a costly burden rather than a useful donation. Make this clear to students at the beginning
• Add the element of competition: Have classes/grades compete to see who can collect the most food
• Make it visible: Assign students to make eye-catching bulletin boards and decorated collection boxes
• Keep everyone posted: Post a tally sheet to show the amount of food collected in various categories so students can see what is still needed
• Hold kick-off and wrap-up events to educate students on hunger in Japan and to share the results

Writer: kmh

Over the past few years, however, this has gradually begun to change and food drives at work and school have become more common. Curves Japan, which owns and operates the women’s fitness club chain “Curves,” ran a food drive campaign in November 2007 calling on members at all of its 600 locations across Japan to bring food in.

Requiring only that the items be unopened, non-perishable at room temperature, and with an expiration date of February 2008 or later, Curves reportedly collected about 50 tons of rice, coffee, tea, sweets, and other canned, dry, and instant food items. This was then distributed to 300 local child-care facilities, churches, and single-parent support organizations.　

Curves Japan found that many of their contributing members had wished for a long time that they could offer some assistance to those around them in need, but had simply never seen or had an opportunity to do so before the food drive. As volunteer activities that are easy to participate in and offer a direct connection to the local community, food drives are surely only going to become more popular as time goes on and people in Japan become more familiar with the concept.

Second Harvest Japan (2HJ) is delighted to offer know-how and advice for organizations running food drives or who would like to host a food drive. Food drives of various kinds have already been run in the Japanese offices of many major multinational companies. One international IT firm’s Japan branch ran a “rice drive,” asking their employees to bring rice to the office. Another company launched a food drive after a 2HJ volunteer who worked there made the suggestion to management.

“We bought too much canned food on sale and I don’t think we can finish it...”

“Our family receives so many gifts of tea that we just can’t drink it all...”

...Are you sure there isn’t any extra food lying around like this in your kitchen too? Why wait for it to pass its expiration date and be thrown out when you could put it to good use in a food drive?

Writer: Etsuko Ohara
Photos: Curves Japan