Nakama Northeast Japan Club Network （仲間ネットワーク）
Volunteers Support to Hurricane Sandy Victims

The Nakama Northeast Japan Club Network participated in a volunteer activity on Saturday, November 10th to help victims who were hit hard by Hurricane Sandy on Rockaway Beach in Long Island, New York. The Nakama members consisted of LaGuardia Community College's Japan Club and New York University students. Members from the New York Japanese-American Lions Club also joined in representing the Japanese community in the New York area. With the assistance of enthusiastic Nakama Network volunteers, Rockaway residents who suffered in the disaster were able to clean up their backyards and basements which were piled with debris and flooded by seawater.

The Nakama Northeast Japan Club Network was established in July 2012 by the initiative of Japan-loving students. In Japanese, "Nakama" means a "circle of friends." The goal of the Nakama Network is to create a strong link bringing together the various Japan Clubs in the Northeast region of the United States. To achieve this bond, members of Nakama strive to inform each other of their group's Japanese cultural events, as well as to organize events encouraging friendship and participation amongst them.

Ms. Reiko Yamamoto, one of the Nakama Network members who led this support activity, said, "By extending support to the Hurricane Sandy victims, the Nakama network also hoped to repay the generous support Japanese people received from Americans at the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami which struck Japan on March 11th, 2011. The memories of the disaster are still vivid among Japanese people, and Japanese members of the Nakama Network are grateful to be able to help American people in the Rockaways in return for their 'Tomodachi bond," of friendship.

The Japan Information Center of the Consulate General of Japan in New York would like to invite all student fans of Japan, along with their teachers and faculty members who also share a deep interest in Japan to join the Nakama Network in hopes of fostering closer friendships between the people of Japan and the United States.

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To Join the Nakana Network
Apply for membership via Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/153922754731479/
Or
Send an email to: nakamanortheast@gmail.com

A list of Japan-related student organizations is available on the Consulate General of Japan in New York's website: http://www.ny.us.emb-japan.go.jp/en/html/StudentOrganizations/index.html