Local Efforts for Japan Earthquake Relief Under Way

As residents of northeastern Japan begin to cope with the devastating results of Friday's earthquake and the tsumani it generated, a Culver City-based relief organization has swung into action while the local Sister City committee is working with residents of its partnership town—Kaizuka, Japan—to determine how to best help.

"Operation USA is collecting bulk items from corporate donors," said the organization's President and CEO Richard Walden. Medical supplies, water purification kits, tents, generators, flashlights and cold weather gear from camping companies have been collected. "We just got a donation of hand-crank radios, which don't require a plug-in."

He said that although individual donations of money are a big help, his organization is not set up to handle small or individual donations of items, such as a couple of flashlights and batteries.

The organization specializes in the emergency phase of disasters, and then will work to help rebuild devasted areas, such as Haiti.

In the meantime, the Culver City Sister City Committee is working to develop an appropriate plan to funnel donations to the affected areas via its partnership city of Kaizuka, which was not affected by the quake.

"They are about 500 miles from the center of Sendai, but they have sent their fire units to assist in the rescue," said Kathleen McCann, the chair of the Kaizuka committee here in Culver City.

McCann has been communicating with her contacts in Kaizuka since shortly after the quake happened. She said the committee immediately began thinking about relief efforts.

"We've been working since the day after it happened," she said. "We're actually trying to formulate a process for Culver City to collect funds and get them to Kaizuka in a joint effort to get relief."

She said that some of the areas of Japan that are more removed from the urban areas aren't as Internet-savvy or connected, and actually expressed surprise that people around the world knew about the quake and were willing to help.

"I think it gave them some comfort," she said.

She expects a relief plan to be in place by the end of the week.

Barbara Honig, also of the committee, told Patch that the Sister City Committee had been planning to host two runners from Kaizuka for the L.A. Marathon on Sunday, but the male runner—a firefighter—has been re-assigned to Sendai to help with the rescue efforts and so won't be able to come. Nana Terai, the female runner, is due to arrive Thursday.

People interested in donating to Operation USA can go to its website, Opusa.org; text $10 to 50555 with the message "rebuild"; send a check to Operation USA, 3617 Hayden Ave., Culver City 90232; or call 800-678-7255.