The distance between the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima, Japan, and Hastings School in the Louis Riel School Division is pretty significant. However, the two were recently brought closer together in the most moving way thanks to Dakota Collegiate Concert Band students who travelled to Japan earlier this year, with a stop at the museum as part of their itinerary. There, in solemn reflection of an event that occurred before any of them were born, a chain of 1,000 paper cranes were placed at the Children's Peace Monument as a wish for peace and in memory of Sadako Sasaki.
The cranes were folded and strung in a chain by Grade 3-8 students in the Hastings School origami club, led by teacher Andrea Siemens. Over many lunch hours, the cranes were painstakingly brought to life, joined together in a chain, carefully packaged for their long journey, and then placed in their final home with personal and poignant messages. For the students to see photos of their cranes that literally flew across the world to their new home was proof that their goal had been realized in the name of world peace and in the name of a young girl about their age who didn't give up on a dream.
