HOT SPRINGS — Hannah Kirk, 8, a student at Lake Hamilton Elementary School in Hot Springs, glanced from the small sheet of blue paper in her hands to her teacher and back again before carefully folding the paper in half. She and her classmates were making origami cranes to be handed out Saturday at Seeds of Peace, a community peace festival hosted by REGARD of Hot Springs.
The cranes — representing peace — are made in memory of Sadako Sasaki, a young Japanese girl who developed leukemia as a result of the atomic bomb that was dropped near her home in Hiroshima in 1945, said Mary Neilson, coordinator of the Sister City Program — one of many local organizations participating in the peace festival.
“When she was ill, one of her friends told her about a Japanese tradition of folding 1,000 paper cranes — that if you fold 1,000 paper cranes you will be granted a wish, and her wish, of course, was to be healed, so she started folding these cranes,” Neilson said.
Sasaki died in 1955 at the age of 12, but she has since become a symbol of peace, and it is now a tradition to fold cranes in memory of her.
Visitors to the peace festival will have an opportunity to make their own peace cranes, with members of the Sister City Program, and enjoy music, dancing, international foods and what are being called “peace-building” activities. The event will be held from 9-11 a.m. at the Hot Springs Creek Greenway near the Farmers Market Pavilion.
“It will be a very festive atmosphere,” said Tracy Freeman, chairman of the event and REGARD member.
A nonprofit organization, REGARD (Recognizing Everyone’s Gifts and Respecting Diversity) was founded about 15 years ago by a Catholic priest and a Jewish rabbi.
“They founded this group to promote tolerance and acceptance of diversity, and it’s grown over the years and into a variety of different things,” said Fred Leonard, a longtime member and co-chairman of REGARD.
Past and present projects include working with schools and the Garland County Library to make Teaching Tolerance materials available, promoting “Be Nice Day” at schools, hosting the annual Martin Luther King Day potluck and supporting the Holocaust Remembrance Project.
One of the organization’s biggest projects is the annual peace celebration, now in its ninth year.
The event was started in 2002 as a memorial service for the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and has since become a local celebration of the International Day of Peace, held traditionally on Sept. 21.
“It’s been sort of an evolving event,” Freeman said. “Most years, until this year, it involved a program and normally music and prayer or speakers. In the last few years, we’ve had some hands-on activities and a program. This year is the first time for us to do it as a festival.”
This year’s event will feature food and drink vendors, arts and crafts, a drum circle, poetry readings by REGARD co-chairman Elmer Beard, a one-man drama by Melvin Chapman of Community of Christ Church, artwork by students of Lake Hamilton Intermediate School and a “Meditation Labyrinth.”
“That’s just kind of a neat activity for personal growth or meditation or just thinking about some of these things that we might not ordinarily think about,” Freeman explained.
Festival-goers will also have an opportunity to learn how to play hand bells, participate in an Israeli dance (taught by members of the Congregation House of Israel), and make a butterfly for the Holocaust Museum Houston’s Butterfly Project. (The museum is trying to collect 1.5 million handmade, arts-and-crafts butterflies to represent the number of children who died in the Holocaust.)
“Some of these things are very kid-friendly, but it doesn’t exclude anybody that wants to participate,” Freeman said. “I encourage adults to come and participate and do all the things. I think lots of times adults learn things from doing hands-on kid activities, and there’s always room for us to learn new things about being more peaceful.”
Freeman added that she is thrilled about all the local organizations participating in this year’s event. Other organizations on hand will include the Lupus Foundation, the Garland County Library and the Ouachita Children’s Center.
“Each year we try to get different groups in the community involved, and it’s been a long road. But I think that just from the participation that we see here this year, it’s certainly been well worth it and we are really excited about it, and we hope that this will continue to grow.”
Call Freeman at (501) 623-6108 for more information.