Sending some Vegetables to a shelter in Kesen-numa (Report #3)

Every Saturday, we hold fund raising at Nakano train station (in Tokyo).  Last Saturday we collected 16188yen ( about $200CAN). Lately, some people donate repeatedly. We are so grateful for everyone who participated.  

We get supplies from Tsukiji central market in Tokyo. This supplier doesn’t charge us extra to make a profit,  and is even considerate enough to pack everything neatly to make our transportation costs down. Much appreciated !!

We send raw vegetables instead of root vegetables, since the shelters where we send the food still have no cooking facilities.

When I visited some shelters in the beginning of June, there were 380 people in Kesen-numa shelters. I was there during lunchtime, so, I asked a few people about the food situation, even though I thought it maybe a little rude to do so.  One lady answered that she had a simple rice ball, a half portion of tofu (about 200g) and some miso soup with a piece of daikon and carrot for lunch.  Her breakfast was a readymade sweet bread, a pack of milk and vegetable juice.  She had yet to finish some of her breakfast, as I could see some remains at her bed side. She told me meat and potatoes are served for supper, but she did not look happy about it. “I just came like this…just could survive, and I can’t complain if I think about all those victims <who died>. So yes, the food situation is poor, but it is the same for everyone,” said she.

 Mr. Uji-ie said, “I used to weigh 67 kg when I came here, now I’m 59 kg.  Our diet right now is not well balanced, not enough vegetables, and my joints hurt.”

Mr. Satou told me he’d hardly had any vegetables till May, only some boiled daikon and carrots from a can give out by the army. Ms. Ono, who is a welfare commissioner told me for her, it was a rice ball and some sweet confectionary, and a man beside her said, “ yes, yes, it was also a rice ball and a yo-kan “(a sweet red bean).

A boxed lunch was served for lunch and supper when June came. “there were some fried vegetables and deep fried stuff。We felt so happy. But raw vegetables were a mouth full of fine chopped cabbage… wanna have some lettuce…” said Mr. Satou. And Ms. Ono said “I’ve never seen a whole tomato since I‘ve been here.”

 I went back to Tokyo and called Ms. Ono, asking, “Will everyone be happier if I send some raw vegetables?” She quickly replied, “we can have some salad, that would be great!”

We sent : 40kg of Tomatoes, 20kg of cucumbers,  20kg of lettuce, 25kg of onions, and 5kg of celery.

Ms. Ono called on the 21^st, saying, “It’s arrived!”

On the 22^nd, I talked with Ms. Ono and she said, “Everybody was so happy to have some salad! We divided the vegetables into 300 meals! Thank you very much!”