The “Helping Fukushima Children to Recover” ProjectActivities Report
3/27 (Fri): The children arrived in Kauai at 1:08 pm. They looked so tired after a long ﬂight. The children were surprised by the warmth of Hawaii. They
prepared games for the next evening’s welcome party. They prepared bycoloring Easter eggs.
Left to right:
Lynn Sasaki, Kaori Sasaki (Chaperon), Ayaka Itabashi, Chihiro Iseki,Tokuma Sasaki, Kanae Shimoda , Shun Ishii
3/28 (Sat): After breakfast, the children went to Salt Pond Beach. They really enjoyed the beach activities. When they
returned to the temple, Waimea Higashi Hongwanji members held a welcome party in the evening. They were able tointeract with members through delicious food and Easter egg games.
3/29 (Sun): We held the Ohigan Service at Waimea Temple with the children. The children‘s chanting was very good!!
This was because they attended service every morning. After lunch, we went hiking to Waimea Canyon. The children
were happy to see the rich, natural, and very beautiful rainbow. After the hike, we visited the Nitta Garden, harvested
oranges, and went ﬁshing.
3/30 (Mon): On this day, we left Waimea temple and went to Moloa’a Bay after lunch. Moloa’a is a good place to be
surrounded by nature. Mr. Anthony and Mrs. Hami are the owners of the cottages at Moloa’a. They manage the many
cottages that were handmade by Anthony. They supported “Aloha Keiki program” last time too. The children harvested
berries and vegetables from the garden. Then, we cooked the harvested vegetables for dinner.
3/31 (Tue): The children spent a whole morning at the beach and enjoyed snorkeling. In the afternoon, the children
picked and husked cacao beans. The owner had some dried beans, so they ground those beans to make hot chocolate.
They enjoyed learning the process and tasting the homemade hot chocolate.
4/1 (Wed): Morning started with a service on the veranda facing the ocean. We thanked the volunteers for allowing us
to stay at their home and left for the Courtyard Marriot for lunch. The children were invited to an excellent lunch of deluxe hamburger. The children also received many gifts such as monk seal stuﬀed animals, Kauai cookies, necklaces, andkendama by the sales manager and guests at the luncheon. After the wonderful lunch, the children shopped for souvenirs at Costco and returned to Waimea Higashi Hongwanji. After dinner, they learned to make their own spam musubi
for their next day’s breakfast.
4/2 (Thu): The day began by eating the spam musubi that they made, and they went to Port Allen for the Napali Coast
Cruise Tour. Five of the children and two chaperons joined the Zodiac rafting tour including snorkeling and lunch. Fortunately, they had a chance to see swimming turtles, dolphins, and even a whale. One of the children went shoppingat Kmart and Walmart and had a pancake for lunch. After the tour, they went to see a Japanese sea buoy which ﬂoatedfrom Fukushima to California, and ﬁnally landed on Kauai two years ago. On the way back to the temple, they stopped
by Jojo’s shave ice shop in Lihue. Each of them picked their own favorite ﬂavors and enjoyed the Hawaiian-style shaveice. After the evening chanting service at the Hondo, the Waimea Temple members and friends held a pot luck farewelldinner for the children. At the party, the children sang Japanese songs with thanks. The children also played games withthe Kauai children.
4/3 (Fri): They woke up in the early morning and cleaned up their rooms. They packed up lots and lots of gifts to takeback to Japan. At 7 am, they left Lihue Airport and safely arrived in Japan.

Special Thanks!!
Waimea Higashi Hongwanji Members/ Lisa Hiraoka/ B. Hiraoka/ Iwao Nonaka/ Ray Nitta/ Barbara Gusman/
Anthony & Hami/ Bon-chan/ Art & Michiru Umezu/ Irene Nitta/ Janice Nitta/ Fusae Tanimoto/Keiko Lansdell/Ishihara Market/ Dan & Jean Chapp/ Faye Shigemura/ Clifton Sato/Sunada Family/ Waimea Honpa Hongwanji Members/ Waimea Shingon Mission