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Fold Origami for a Good Cause

Three EHS juniors are spearheading this fundraising effort where for $1, you can fold a paper crane and your donation will go towards supporting the Japanese Red Cross. Enumclaw's government and business communities are also extending a hand.

ENUMCLAW – A budding community activist needs you to come to her aid if she is going to be able to help tsunami victims in Japan.

Also, in another effort to help the victims, city employees have combined donations with a local service group and business and will be able to purchase three ShelterBoxes. The boxes, which cost $1,000 each, contain items that can sustain 10 victims for up to six months.

The young activist, Lori Lamm, and two friends, who are all juniors at Enumclaw High School, are making 1,000 paper cranes and selling them for $1 each. Proceeds will go to the Japanese Red Cross. So far, the trio has only sold about $100 worth.

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Lamm got the idea from a friend in the Tacoma Youth Symphony who is doing the same thing at a Tacoma school.

Lamm and her local friends tried to sell the cranes at school during lunch, but they didn’t do well because juniors and seniors don’t go to the cafeteria, she said.

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This isn’t the first time Lamm has been involved in community service. With her church group she packaged food at the food bank and did yard work for the elderly. She even helped out on a farm in Australia.

“That was eye-opening; it made me want to help people,” she said. “People are the same everywhere; they just try to differentiate.”

On the cranes that the girls sell they write the name of the purchaser. The cranes will then be given to stores in the community. Lamm plans to hang up some of the cranes at , and to raise awareness of the project.

 “It will bring prosperity to all of Enumclaw,” Lamm said, referring to Japanese legend, which also says anyone who folds 1,000 cranes will be granted a wish and that a string of paper cranes symbolizes peace and happiness.

Mars Soikes, who along with Janice Fair is helping Lamm, also said she likes to do community service.

“I didn’t know what to do” when she heard about the disaster, Soikes said. “I didn’t have money to donate because money’s tight.”

So she decided to help Lamm. Soikes said she is conscientious about what goes on in the world. She said she has family and friends “all over the place,” including South America, Europe and Asia.

Even though she’s on spring break, Soikes said of the paper cranes, “I’m still folding them.”

And it’s not easy to fold them; giving a demonstration it took about four minutes for Lamm to do just one, start to finish. Lamm will do a seminar on how to make the cranes April 12 in Room 316 at the high school. The Key Club is providing funding for the paper.

If anyone wants to help in the girls' effort, check out their Facebook page or email papercranes.enumclaw@yahoo.com. The trio plans to continue its effort through the end of the month.

As for the city's fund-raising effort, Mayor Liz Reynold said city employees raised about $780 in donations and the Chamber of Commerce contributed a few hundred dollars more. 

That total of more than $1,000 is enough to buy one ShelterBox, which contains a tent and lifesaving supplies. Mutual of Enumclaw and the Enumclaw Rotary plan to match the city's amount, Reynolds said.

"It's a very positive thing,” the mayor said.

The Courier-Herald reported earlier that folks at the Enumclaw Senior Activity Center were also working on their own paper crane project in support of the victims in Japan.

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