Fund focus, how you can take part, some links & family update

Dear All,

As promised, here is the plan.

This fund will be directly related to helping people in Hitachi Naka City and the surrounding areas within the Ibaraki prefecture with repairs needed on roofs and structural elements of their homes.  The beneficiaries will be families with incomes less than the median household income in Japan.

The intention of this fund will be to move from 1 project to the next and in this we will hope that we can provide you all with a more intimate look at the people that are directly benefiting from the help that you give.  The first project will be Mayumi's home.  Please know that we have every intention to move beyond just this one and will be working tirelessly to identify more families in similar situations.  Stay tuned.

To be a part of this you can contribute by emailing us at hitachinakacityhelp@gmail.com.  We will send you a personal email with a bank account in either US or Hong Kong.  Please know that this is a grass roots effort and it is our first that we have administered.  I believe that most of you that may contribute know me personally and know that I would not do anything other than be fully transparent with you.

We are also aware of scams out there and please know this is not one of them.  Here are some articles and also some large scale charities in case you feel more comfortable contributing to them.

Investigation on scams:
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/03/nj_investigators_on_high_alert.html

Legit charities:
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=1221

Hitachinakacity information:
http://www.city.hitachinaka.ibaraki.jp/english/sitemap.html

Family update:

The 6.1 quake that you may have read about did in fact hit their area but according to my family, it was minor.  There has been so many aftershocks since this big one that everybody seems to used to it.  Hard to relate to that but that is what they said.

Their days have been consisting of going to the grocery store which is just 1 table and waiting on line for the daily water amount which takes about 90 minutes.  They still go to the neighbor for additional water from the well.   The government has been calling every house and tomorrow, Dad will go to visit them to learn about what help the Govt will provide.

Although we have only been hearing about orderly society, it seems there has been some reports of people syphoning gas from tanks due to the long lines at the gas station.  Hopefully this next week there can be a better picture.  Things seem to be stabilizing at the Dai Ichi Plant, the roads are starting to get some of the basic repairs for cars to get around which means that deliveries can start again.  Lets just keep hoping for the best.

Thanks for staying in touch,

Brian