Prayer for Peace
NYC Vigil for Peaceful Tomorrows

September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows and War Resister's League called for entry of the gathering for peace from 9/10 to 9/11 over night.

"NY de Volunteer" had thought what is the best way for an individual to express their thoughts and what is the appropriate opportunity.Despite each people has different experience and reaction to 9/11, but their feelings are the same: Wishes for the peace.

September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows and War Resister's League called for entry of the over night prayer for peace, NYC Vigil for Peaceful Tomorrows from 9/10 to 9/11. We met Ms. Coleen Kelly, the represetative of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows on Aug. 6 atPrayer for Peace, and were asked if we could make the latern for writing the messages on it for this gathering for peace. Resident Minister of Buddhist Church of New York, Mr. Nakagaki gave the idea to use a milk carton, and "NY de Volunteer" started to make the lantern.

In the early September, by War Resister's League's effort, 600 milk cartons were donated to us from a milk plant in New Jersey. In the meantime, we heard the entry and the offer of tapestries and paper cranes from New York and Japan from WTC Healing Project.Many volunteers contacted us from Japan.

9/9 Lantern making volunteer
About 40 volunteers gathered at a chuch and made lanters at the kitchen area.They folded, cut and glued the rice paper through work flow. 300 laterns were made and the small kitchen area was filled with lantern and the satisfactory feelings of volunteers.

9/10 Setup, Writing messages and Making paper cranes
At 4:30 pm, the 300 lanterns were brought to the park and set up at 5. WTC's image was made by thousands of paper cranes and hoisted at the center of the park. In the meantime, we sit on the blue soil cover and lit the candles of the lantern and put the holding handles on it. The completed lanterns were ready for writing the messages by visitors. About 100 email messages from Japan were written by us also. At the same time, making cranes, teaching how to make it and handing out them were going on.

9:00pm Lighting
We were standby in front of the lined up lanterns.At the moment that the family of victims at the stage side lit the candle at the audience side, 300 lanterns were lit immediately. Lantern holders lined up following to monks chanting. They marched around the fountain circle. Last year, many people passed by with the same feeling in the same season. Here used to be a site to see WTC. The circle of lights were expanding and lantern light blurred. And then, the lights propagated in the park.

10;00pm Ending message, Cleanup
After the cleanup, everybody sang the Sukiyaki song. "Walk with face up to sky, then tear doesn't drop" Volunteers and supervisors' serious will made everything possible. We hope our message will come true.

"Message for Peace" by Site Organizer, Satoko Shibutani

Peace for World Peace
Our message is
to share the message
of each person

which carries their sincere wish.

"Since I had alredy concern of this candle vigil event, and I planned to participate this by adjusting my schedule. Because I think, though we enterd the 21st century, there are wars in lots of area in the world and tragedies still continue other than New York on 9/11. As I wish the world peace, I had always thought to do something for this as much as I could. This prayer of peace is truely not only for 9/11 victims but also other victims of the wars around the world with wishes for world peace.
However, I was reluctant until the day came, because I was unsure if I would worry about riding the subway on 9/10. For me, I was scared of not only terrorist attacks but the fear as U.S. foreign policy would trigger more terrorist attacks. But, that event day, I decided to go and took subway. The site organizer directed well and I asked visitors to write messages on lanterns. And I saw the many messages on lanterns said, "no more war."
To tell you the truth, I thought, under the current political mood, it is brave to speak out of the anti-war and hold the anti-war gathering, but indeed many people were there. I don't like war and under the no-more-war mood then, I lit the lantern with messages and I prayed for peace while marching. Many people other than volunteers came too. In the middle of crowd, I heard the speech. I realized there had been like this in New York when I heard the speech. BBAnd I was so impressed. After 9/11, anti-war people were labeled as traitors, and I heard the voice for Iraqi attacks after Afganistan air strike. Despite this mood, it is small number of people in the the Big Apple, but I wan lucky to meet those people. And also I felt the great accomplishment and unification with others, and I thought I was right to participate this work honestly. " (by Masako)

We would like to receive more feedbacks from the volunteers of this "NYC Vigil for Peaceful Tomorrows" events!
If you want to show your photo on this site, please send us. NYdV staff will edit and upload it on this site. staff@nydevolunteer.org

Photos of the day Poster of the event (PDF file/300k over)

Related articles Asahi.com ?Kanagawa Shimbun(Japanese newspaper)