Nippon Kan receives correspondence by mail and email from all over the world most every day. Some of the letters we receive are from other dojos who have been inspired by AHAN to start community service projects in their own communities. At Nippon Kan we are always delighted to receive these kinds of reports since one of the biggest goals of AHAN is to inspire the spirit of humanitarian and community service everywhere. Success in these projects is not only for us, we hope dojos everywhere succeed in mobilizing support for their communities no matter what size dojo or number of students.
Below are two letters we received from a dojo in Kansas we wanted to share with all of you.
Tues July 29th, 2008
Our first community service project
Dear Gaku Homma Sensei,
I am writing to inform you about a community service project that a small independent dojo in Topeka, KS is participating in. The inspiration for this project came from the many articles and activity reports regarding AHAN that I have read from your website.
I am the instructor for the Aikido program at Professional Martial Arts (PMA). PMA is a small dojo where Aikido, Karate, Taiji and other programs share training time. Because of everyone’s busy schedule and a small student population, I decided to start with a small service project that would be easy for students to get involved in. For this project, students in the children’s Aikido and children’s Karate programs were asked to bring food items to the dojo to donate to Doorstep, Inc. Doorstep, Inc. is an agency that “helps Topekans/our neighbors survive crises, improve their way of life and become self sufficient.” Being a small dojo, I challenged the students to collect 2 boxes of food to donate. At this time, they have exceeded my goal and have collected 4 boxes and still have another day to donate items. It is very exciting to walk through the dojo and see children so happy to help others in need. I have seen some children who appear to get more enjoyment out of donating the food then when they received a promotion for Aikido.
Although the food drive is a small project I think it will serve as a launching pad for future community service projects. I would like to thank you for all of the humanitarian efforts you have put forth and let you know that your efforts have now had an impact in Topeka, KS. I am looking forward to someday visiting Nippon Kan to train and learn more about AHAN. Many of my students are also interested in visiting the dojo so I am beginning to organize a trip to Denver in the future (it is likely that it will be several months down the road so we can all raise enough money for the trip and to schedule time off of work and/or school).
Sincerely,
Brian Gillaspie
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Thursday Dec 4th, 2008
Another community service project in Topeka KS
Dear Gaku Homma Sensei,
I wanted to write and let you know that our dojo in Topeka, KS has just completed our second community service project. After being inspired by AHAN, I organized our first community service project this past summer and we are now successfully wrapping up our second project.
After the success of the food drive this past summer I decided to participate in a project sponsored by Doorstep, Inc called “Christmas in July”. Every year Doorstep Inc adopts 250 local families for Christmas and the items collected for the “Christmas in July” program are used to support the adoption of these families. The items donated to Doorstep are used to set up a “department store” so parents can choose items for their adopted family. Instead of having strangers by gifts for a specific family member, this “department store” setup allows parents to choose items that will be most enjoyable to their children.
The student participation rate was high for the project and students from the Aikido, Karate, and Taiji programs all donated items to be delivered to Doorstep, Inc. We have collected several boxes of items for the project and we are excited to know that our donations will bring joy to many individuals during this Christmas season.
On a different subject…a few of my students and I would like to visit and train at Nippon Kan. If you are welcome to us coming to visit is there a time of year and a time of the week that would be best for us to organize a trip to Denver.
Sincerely,
Brian Gillaspie