Click here to watch a slideshow on the Origami-A-Thon

Sacramento State’s Japan Club and members of the community will spend this Sunday folding one thousand paper cranes to send to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum in Japan.

Sunday’s event will be the Japan Club’s second annual Origami-A-Thon. The Origami-A-Thon aims to promote world peace by folding one thousand paper cranes held together by strings.

Stephanie Pan, treasurer of the Japan Club, said the event is based off of the story Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. Sadako Sasaki was living in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan.

Pan said Sasaki developed leukemia from the radiation of the bomb and was told that folding one thousand cranes would allow her to make one wish, which was to live.

“The story of Sadako is a goodwill kind of message for hope and prosperity,” Pan said.

Ria Fae Caldo, secretary of the Japan Club, said the Japan Club will be teaching participants how to fold paper cranes and welcomes all members of the community to attend.

The Origami-A-Thon will take place on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the University Union’s Delta Room on the second floor.

Guests can enjoy refreshments and Japanese music. Caldo said the event will feature competitions to test participant’s folding speed. Surprise prizes will be awarded to the competition winners.

Caldo said that this year’s paper crane collection will be put on display in Sac State’s library before being shipped to Japan.

Sac State’s One Book Program is partnering with the Japan Club for this event to encourage students, faculty and staff to participate in this experience.

Sheree Meyer, One Book Faculty Coordinator, said the One Book Program felt the Japan Club’s events would be an appropriate addition to the program since this year’s One Book, “Then the Emperor was Divine,” is about the internment of Japanese Americans and the violation of their rights.

“As an assertion of common humanity, of unity and of diversity, the Origami-A-Thon powerfully enacts the goal of the One Book Program to help build and strengthen community on our campus,” Meyer said.

Miranda Marsalla can be reached at [email protected]