Undercover Mission: HANA-PAN

People lost everything...house, cars, clothing, things they had. Tsunami took them all...

What can we do? What can I do to help these people who survived and somehow could encourage them a little.. what would be their mmedicate needs? foods? clothing? branket? toiletary? underwear?

Oh, YES ! Underwear !! They are small enough, maybe light enough we can ship from here without too much shipping expense.... everybody needs them everyday. I hear guys can wear the same one several times in and out ....but that is not gonna happen to girls. NO WAY !!
I was also hoping the colorful and pretty underwear might give a little joy to girls and ladies under this extreme circumstances.

So, that's that. I decided to send pretty underwear to Japan.
Undercover Mission: Hana-Pan was started.
( “HANA-PAN” an abbreviation in Japanese we made up for flower pattern undies. HANA = Flower, PAN = PANTIES abbreviated )

By sending emails to friends and colleagues requesting the support to this projects, I was able to find supporters both in California and Japan.

The project started the March 21, and the first shipment of our package with 239 pairs of undies was sent out on March 28 to AAR Japan.
http://www.aarjapan.gr.jp/activity/report/emergency/

After that was a snowball effect.... at the end of this project, we collected 2,831 pairs of new underwear in California and Japan by April 16, and we made total of 10 shipments to several groups, such as NPOs, an handicapped center, an orphanage, and evacuation centers.
We received many thank you letters from these groups. That was nice.

2,831 pairs of undies.... almost 3,000 pairs is an amazing result, isn't it !!!

I am so proud of my colleague friends who helped me and supported me on this project. I am very thankful how quickly they responded to my call... Amazing people. Love you, all !!

Friends here went to Ross, Marshalｌs, Targets, Outlets and flee markets, etc.
Friends all over in Japan were mailing the underwear to my Tokyo delivery office, another friend place.

Her place (Tokyo delivery office as I called it) was filled with pretty undies and panties flying over her head like crazy as my car trunk was filled with them, too.

I really hope these undies brought a bit of hope to them.

Here are some pictures from Undercover Mission: HANA-PAN.