Warm Fuzzy Feelings at the Cherry Blossom Festival

I'd like to give a big thanks to everyone attending the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival at SF's Japantown over the weekend. The weather was a little windy, but everyone had a great time with the parade and all the fun booths selling all kinds of goodies.

One thing I'm especially proud about is the people who generously donated to the earthquake and tsunami relief fund during the festival.

On Saturday, the Teriburger booth had one of those donation cans on their counter, but hardly received any donations. I thought to myself, why don't I solicit donations as part of my duties at the booth?

It worked out! I'm the street barker for Kimochi's Teriburger booth and I was advertising our burgers and also asking for donations by holding onto the donation can. Donations kept coming in, just within the first 30 minutes, I had several people drop their coins and dollar bills in the can. At other times, I had people feeding $20 bills. On multiple occasions, the can got so full, I had to push down the bills as far as I can just to accept more cash.

It's also nice to hear some of the great stories from people:

• A child donated all of her piggy bank savings.
• A second child sold baked goods in front of her home and donated all the proceeds.
• One said she already donated $80 and donated more out of kindness.

In the end, word has it the festival generated $200,000 in donations to help Japan. The Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California already received over $1,000,000 donations and the extra $200K will do great help.

Thanks for a great weekend!