Carroll, Howard, Baltimore Counties Respond to Crisis in Japan

Want to know what your neighbors are doing in response to the disaster in Japan, and how you can help? Patch found some answers.

Residents waited for word that friends were safe and raised money to help the relief effort after the devastating earthquake and tsunami.

• Westminster Patch editor Kym Byrnes who is studying abroad in Japan and felt the tremors of last Friday’s quake. Staying nearly 400 miles southwest of where the temblor hit, he said: “All I felt was a sensation that I was swaying back and forth...My parents told me that several of my aunts called, crying, concerned for my safety.”
• Howard County nonprofits have set up ways for people to donate. The Volunteer Center Serving Howard County has resources for all and lesson plans about giving to relief efforts.
• Catonsville resident Kanji Takeno, a teacher at Towson University who has family, friends, and former students in Japan, told the Catonsville Times:  “The Japanese people appreciate what the American people are doing.”
• Some news reports raise questions about whether Americans should donate to Japan, which is not, according to the New York Times, “impoverished Haiti.” Baltimore Sun journalist Luke Broadwater weighed in on this discussion, urging people to donate: “Yes, there are poorer countries elsewhere in the world," he said. "But that doesn't mean this tragedy in Japan is any less a tragedy. “
• Constantine Vaporis, program director for the newly created Asian Studies program at University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), has heard harrowing reports from the friends in Japan he’s made during the nearly 30 years he’s studied the country. “Old people who have been saved from the disaster are dying because they are not getting enough food and water,” he told Patch Friday. “It’s difficult to understand how that could be happening in a place like Japan.”
• UMBC will have a Japan Disaster Awareness Week on campus, scheduled for March 30 to April 6. Activities include a fundraiser March 29 organized by the UMBC Japanese Culture Club where people can buy an origami red rose keychain for $3. Money will go to relief efforts.