Compiled by Janet Hamilton
From the OrigamiUSA Newsletter Issue 78, 2002/Volume 2
The joy of origami has been spread around the world by volunteers sharing their designs, teaching models they have learned, writing newsletters, and organizing meetings. Listed below are some sightings by members of the origami-l email list where origami was involved in other worthy causes.
The article headlined "The Gifts of Fred Rose" appeared in W (a fashion magazine), issue August 20-27, 1990. "Fred Rose likes to pass the buck - but in his own way. During meetings, he folds origami animals out of dollar bills, then gives them away. 'Brooke Astor likes to sit next to me at board meetings' he says, 'because no one else gives her presents.’ Rose admits that making cash into critters is a bit irreverent. 'My wife doesn't approve' he says." The article goes on to talk about his involvement with the arts and his initial funding for the Rose building at Lincoln Center in New York. Illustrations show a photo of Fred Rose, a shirt and a dog made from dollar bills and a view of Lincoln Center. The 3/26/98 edition of the Wall Street Journal profiled Rose on page A10, listing his hobbies as golf, chess, piano, and origami. The article relates that Mr. Rose won honors for his origami presentations. In the New York Times Sept 16, 1999 was his obit: "Mr. Rose always carried a stack of foreign currency and American dollar bills, which he would fold into intricate origami figures of birds, cows and walruses and present to his delighted friends". Fred Rose was on the board of the American Museum of Natural History in New York where OrigamiUSA has its headquarters. The new Rose Center for Earth and Space at the museum is named for Frederick Phineas and Sandra Priest Rose.
The Sasuga bookstore in Cambridge, MA held a Fold-A-Thon on Sat. Oct. 23, 1999 from 10 AM to 6 PM. The participants had sponsors pledge an amount of money for each crane they folded. The event benefited the Jimmy Fund, which helps children with chronic and terminal illnesses. The cranes were to be sent to the Hiroshima Peace Park.
Bay Area Action (Palo Alto, CA) sponsored the Phone Book Forest Origami Project for Earth Day 1997. Participants were invited to create origami forest animals using old phone books, in an effort to call for the protection of ancient temperate forests and the use of non-wood papers (such as kenaf and Arbokem) as an alternative. The goal was to collect at least 3,000 origami hand-folded shapes.
The Santa Cruz "EarthVision 2000” Environmental Film Festival used a dragonfly for the festival mascot. Guillermo Pavet provided a Kawahata dragonfly, and the folding was filmed in stop-motion to use for the festival's TV ad. They reversed the sequence for the ads, so that the dragonfly is actually shown being unfolded. Check it out at http://www.technosterone.com/media/dragonfly.mov
According to origami legend, the late Chicago folder Jack Skillman (creator of the Jackstone) worked for the Chicago Board of Health and filled glass display windows with large colorful geometric constructions along with syphilis warnings. Jack said "first you have to get their attention.”
Michiko Pumpian has a recording called "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes" produced by Dream Come Through Productions. It is sung in both Japanese and English with a message of peace for the world. The song was co-written with her daughter, Alicia, who was awarded Peaceable Planet’s first annual Peace Prize for her involvement in the World Peace Project for Children. http://sadako.org
The Nickelodeon channel has a regular feature called "Big Helpers in Action" that showcases projects by kids that help the community, the ecology, etc. The installment on 5/14/97 showed some school children folding origami models of extinct animals.
On the CBS Evening News on Friday March 28, 1997, there was a story about all the articles left at the site of the Oklahoma bombing. A storeroom of the articles was shown, including a very large display of origami cranes. The woman in charge of these articles commented on the vast numbers of cranes that they have received.
The May 2000 issue of BAT Magazine from Bat Conservation International has an article about Michael LaFosse with pictures of a set of framed origami bats which he apparently has given to BCI. There was also a picture of Michael with a large penguin.
In the December 1996 issue of People magazine (with Sarah Ferguson on the cover) was an article entitled "Gift of Hope" about the tragic death of Alex Van Cleave, age 5, at the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, Japan. In the article there's a picture of two staff members at Alex's school unpacking collections of origami peace cranes sent by U.S. students as a gesture of hope and goodwill. Alex's parents donated his organs to several Japanese patients, which caused quite a stir in Japan, where organ donation is not as common as in the U.S.