Peace Cranes and A Gift from the Heart

Anne Shea, flickr photo

Judy Bauer, a teacher, and her students at Blacksburg New School in Blacksburg, Virginia, are unsung heroes. I've mentioned them in blogs and Facebook posts about the Partnership Grant for English-language books for the Starobilsk Library. I've thanked them online and sent a written thank you note from the English Club via regular mail. I do not know if Judy has heard from us.

Judy and her students made origami peace cranes, sewed them into mobiles, and sold them to raise money for the Partnership Grant, "Books for a Community Library." I do not know how Judy learned about our project. Online I would guess. I do not know Judy or her students. I don't know Blacksburg New School. I just did a search and learned that Blacksburg is an old colonial town of some 40,000 people in Montgomery County in southwestern Virginia, in the Appalachian’s Blue Ridge mountains. It’s the home of Virginia State University and, having driven the Blue Ridge, I figure it must be a lovely mountain town. But all I knew before this was that there is a teacher and her students there who made an incredible gift to our library and helped open the world of books to more students a world away.

Peace cranes are ancient Japanese symbols of health and peace. "A Thousand Peace Cranes" was a project to honor victims of Hiroshima. They now represent the hope for peace in the world. Google peace cranes and you'll learn all about them, and how to make them. There are 1,000 and more uses for this lovely paper art. I use them for Christmas tree decorations. Judy and her students used them to bring books to a small village library in far-eastern Ukraine. A gift from the heart. What a lesson for Judy's students, and for the people of Starobilsk: the kindness of strangers, the generosity of kindred spirits, the hope for peace, one peace crane at a time.