To find the winner of the dancing lady we numbered each ticket and after lots of mixing of the numbers, Naoko Ojio, our Japanese friend, pulled the winning number from a big pot. The winning number was #528, that of Mitch Shostak and Carolyn Iu from New York City.

Thanks to 400 hundred plus people like YOU from all over the world, and 30 States, our fund raising raffle was a grand success, raising close to $24,000. for medical relief for Japan. Hundreds of handwritten beautiful notes and letters came in from friends and friends of friends expressing concern and care.

One letter was from a friend whose mother survived the 1923 earthquake in Tokyo who was a baby in her mother's arms when the street she was next to dropped into a crack in the earth. Another letter from a high school classmate (in Japan) who spoke of his warm memories of Yodogawa Christian Hospital where he volunteered as a conscientious objector in the Vietnam war days. Two Japanese friends who knew and loved my parents told their friends in Japan and heard from someone who they hadn't heard from in 50 years! It has been so moving, the letters....like hundreds of prayers going out to Japan. One Japanese friend wrote from Japan, " I feel we are all one".

All the money will go to the hospital that my father started in Osaka (Yodogawa Christian Hospital) which has an active presence now in the northern devastated areas. They have a partner hospital in Fukushima, very near the power plant with all the problems, and they are supplying medical relief and counseling, focusing on the city of Kamaishi in Iwate prefecture where they feel other help was slow in coming and where it was needed most.

Thank you! Thank you!

Here's the original announcement of the raffle.

Joy Brown
Christine Owen
Richard Wanderman
Michael Friedman
Maria Jose
Jennifer Miller
Bronte Christian
Ananda Saha
Jimmy Griffin

Questions? Contact joy@artwithin.net