The Japanese Culture Club (JCC) has in the past two weeks raised over $6,000 to support relief efforts following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, surpassing its initial fundraising goal of $5,000, and will now set its sights higher.
The club collected $6,457 as of March 22, according to JCC co-president Jason Moloney. Following this success, JCC has decided to aim for an additional $10,000, Moloney, a senior, said.
All donations will be given to the American Red Cross, he added.
JCC began collecting donations at the Chinese Students Association (CSA) culture show shortly following the earthquake, according to JCC co-president Sho Igawa. The club also solicited contributions at the Mayer Campus Center and Dewick-MacPhie Dining Hall throughout the week preceding spring break, Igawa, a junior, said.
The club additionally created a blog, titled Tufts Supports Japan which provides stories and news about the situation in Japan and allows the blog's visitors to donate using PayPal.
"We tried to get fundraising through PayPal so that people could donate through the blog," Moloney said. "That's where a large portion of our fundraising came [from]."
JCC members said the club's efforts received a big boost after University President Lawrence Bacow on March 17 sent an e-mail to the Tufts community in which he wrote about the Japanese disaster and provided a link to JCC's blog.
The group is now looking to expand its efforts and collaborate with other organizations.
"At this point there's definitely help out there, and we're trying to put it all together," Igawa said.
The club plans to reach its new goal by continuing to collect donations at various locations across campus, expanding beyond the campus center and Dewick, according to Igawa.
"We don't want to overdo it, but we're definitely going to switch it up to Carmichael [Dining Hall] and some other places on campus," Igawa said.
JCC will also fundraise at other clubs' upcoming culture shows, he added.
"The Vietnamese Students Club and the Korean Students Association, they're letting us collect donations at their culture shows just like CSA," Igawa said.
JCC is planning a charity concert on April 15 in Hotung Café, according to Moloney. Although the exact line-up is yet to be determined, the club is looking to include a cappella groups and other student performers, Igawa said.
The club's primary challenge is to keep student awareness of the disaster alive in the coming weeks.
"Basically what we feel is our biggest problem is that, coming back from break, a lot of people might be forgetting about this crisis," Moloney said. "Students have already donated quite a bit, but we want to keep it in the conscience of everyone."
JCC in addition has ordered a thousand buttons to distribute to donors, helping to remind them of the disaster, according to Igawa. "We hope they'll go on people's bags and such, just to keep this disaster in people's minds," he said.
JCC's fundraising for earthquake relief has been "very natural," according to Igawa.
"At the beginning … some of us doubted how much a student club could do in America," he said. "But as we realized the destruction was just more terrible that what we ever could have imagined … that propelled all of us to do something."
Group members deemed financial contributions to be the most efficient way to provide assistance for relief efforts.
"We wanted to do something that would actually help people who were there," Moloney said. "What they need most right now is financial support."
Though the American Red Cross is the current destination for all donations, JCC members are investigating other possible organizations that might more directly provide assistance to victims.
"We know that there are others," JCC's treasurer Noriko Aizawa, a junior, said. "They might be smaller, but more directly involved within the country."
Thus far, student reactions to the fundraising have been overwhelmingly positive, according to JCC members.
"Everyone has been really supportive and incredible generous about our whole fundraising campaign," Aizawa said. "We've been really amazed by how supportive Tufts has been so far."
