A Japanese woman living in Sheffield has helped raise more than £1,000 for the Japan earthquake and tsunami appeal by organising a special dinner event in Sheffield city centre.

Etsuko Bains, a full time mother, organised the charity dinner event at Blue Moon Cafe in Sheffield on 25th March. An £16 dinner included a drink, vegetarian buffet style dish and dessert, with half of the charge donated to Japan Tsunami Appeal through British Red Cross.

“Even though I’ve been living away from Japan for 20 years, I couldn’t just stay at home in front of the television, doing nothing, so I decided to do something,” she says.

Quick organising

Utilising her experience as an event organiser, Mrs Bains started planning the fund raising event on 12th March, just a day after the earthquake. She immediately sought her favourite cafe in the city centre as the venue, even though she personally didn’t know the owner of the cafe.

Bill Clarke, one of the joint owners of the cafe, was happy to hold the fundraiser, and gave £2 discount to each dinner for the event.

“I don’t know a great deal about Japan, but I’m happy to help and now I’m more interested to hear about Japan than I’ve ever been before”, he said.

Positive responses

Mrs Bains spoke to her friends in Sheffield, and wrote a blog post about the fundraising dinner, then her friends spread the information through social networking sites, such as Facebook and Mixi, a Japanese version. The responses were better than she expected. About 130 people responded but due to limited seats, only 61 people could attend the event.

“I really thank all my friends for spreading the word and putting the link of my blog to any social networking service to spread the information,” Mrs Bains said.

Carole Smith, a 53-year-old florist, travelled to the event from Chesterfield. “I heard about the event from my friend who got married to a Japanese woman, unfortunately her family and friends live in stricken area,  and the family is safe but she still can’t contact some  of her friends,” she said.

“I want to support Japan, and tonight I’m very impressed that so many people turned up and a lot of people want to support Japan,” she added.

Yoshiko Takeda, a Japanese student at University of Sheffield and a member of the university based fundraising group for Japan called ‘Save Japan‘, attended the dinner.

“I got today’s information on Facebook, I decided to join the dinner with my friend to support Japan,” she said.

Similar event

Mrs Bains is planning similar events shortly for people who couldn’t attend the last one for whatever reason. “I’m thinking about holding an event for early in the evening, to accommodate mothers with children, so they can attend the event and everybody can enjoy it,” she said.

“I hope it will be successful, and we can get as much money as we can,” she adds.

Yoshiko Takeda also thought the enjoyable charity event was a good idea. “Even though we have the will to support Japan, putting that energy into practice is difficult. so I think today’s enjoyable event is a good start,” she said.

The fundraising including the charge of dinner and raffle reached £931. Mrs Bains donated the money as Gift Aid through British Red Cross. The Gift Aid system increases the value of donations to charities by allowing them to reclaim basic rate tax on your gift. As a result the total fundraising for the evening reached £1,164.

William Pharnehough, 72, lived in Japan for 13 years and has many friends in the stricken area. He said all his friends are safe but outlined his concerns about the children.

“One thing I am really concerned about is the children,” he said.

“Orphans from this disaster will need long-term care. I hope people can raise a good amount of money for them.”

The next event will be 9th April @ Fusion Organic Cafe from 4:30 to 7:00pm