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NY Cares Day
Sequel to Spring Clean Up Day, NY de Volunteer participated in this event together with JETAA (see below) as the Japan Team.Despite the early morning gathering at 7 am, 10 helps showed up for registration work. They worked very well under the cold dark dawn, hading out New York Cares T shirts and checking registered name lists. At the meeting location, Bryant Park, New York Cares supplied bagels and cream cheeses and some grooved with pop music to warm up their bodies before ridng the bus As a body got warmth, everybody got on yellow school buses heading to the destination, a public school in Queens. Paints and brushes were ready beforehand. After some the introduction from the principal, the volunteers splited into groups and painted walls of class rooms and the auditorium, maintained plans besides the entrance gates and painted lines of basket court. In the auditorium, they started painting a rainbow again the white walls.According to the pencil guidelines, volunteer drew the paint carefully. As they got used to do, they started enjoying it. Once they finished the rainbow, the could paint their favorite patterns, so some painted lotus, seagulls and balloons and so on. Near the end, the white walls became colorful and shining. The principal became so much delighted to this scene.Volunteers missed to see the children7s reaction, but they enjoyed this work since they could look inside a school of New York and paint their works. Some said he/she wanted to complete the work, so he/she went to the school to finish his/her work by him/herself later. Once the finished the wrap-up, they went back to Bryant Park by the school bus and headed to the party hosted by New York Cares at the club, Speed.Thousands fo people had worked on more than 100 schools on that day. We spoke with those people there. Beer refreshed them after sweating for good. And then, the wrap-up party of NYdV counted about 20 people including JETAA members. They spoke about their works with korean dinners along with introducing themselves.
NY Cares is the supporting organization for the partnership among volunteer people. It was established in 1987 to connect the people who want to volunteer and who need volunteers. Assisting for Schools, homeless shelters, NPO and so on, New York Cares origanized thousands of volunteer activities. For more information, please visit http://www.nycares.org
The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme invites young college and university graduates from overseas throughout Japan in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications and the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations (CLAIR). The program amis to promote the international exchange and foreign language education in local level, and consequently the mutual understanding between Japan and foreign coutries along with globalization of local area of Japan. JET Alumni Association in NY is alumni association of JET participants in NY. Most of them are Japanese friendly and speak Japanese well since they stayed Japan for a long time. Coincidently, JETAA was planning how to gather participants for this events as well as maintain JET community when NYdV contacted to them. Then JETAA joined with NYdV. About JETAANY http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/jet/ Japan Exchange and Teaching Program Alumni Association in New York: http://www.jetaany.org/ JETAANY is planning to work with NYdV for cultural exchange, language exchange, New York Cares project and so on. "Nihongo DAKE dinner" of JETAA's regular Japanese speaking dinner has invited NY de Volunteer. First dinner was on 9/16. 40 members participated in it (NYdV was 10 perticipants) and they enjoyed it a lot. "Nihongo DAKE dinner" became English speaking dinner with only JETAA members, we hope you join it as much as possible. Next schedule will be notified by NY de Volunteer mailing list. 
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"This
is the first experience for me to join the group volunteer. Fromt
the registration process in the morning to the wrap-up party, I
had really enjoyed the whole process. Well, it is great to feel
the motivation to commit to volunteer and acoomplishment feeling
after finishing as well as charm on the face of the beneficiary
of volunteer. I truly appreciate to receive this chance. And I would
like to work together again. Thank you. " (by Keroppa) 
School
cleanup program is the first volunteer work through NY de Volunteer.Usually,
I have few contacts with people, so I met as many people as I would
meet in a year. I made friends on the bus and still I am meeting
her frequently. I am so much amazed that it is easy to make friends
through volunteer works. MY assignment there is just whitening the
walls by paint and it wa simple. But when I saw the rainbow in the
auditorium, I imagined the children would be excited to see it,
and I felt excitement too. As I heard the appreciation remarks from
the principals and other teachers, I felt the value of this works
and so much fulfillment. With my new friends, I got really nice
experience. I hope to come back again to do volunteer. " (by Alyssa
Makiguchi)
OCS News