Delivering Hope
With a simple menu and a few bus drivers, one young Member turned an ordinary school lunch into a community project of help.
Max Murakami-Moses was supposed to be studying for his upcoming Advanced Placement physics and history tests.
Instead, he was reading up on NBA superstar Steph Curry’s new coronavirus relief project. Alongside nonprofits and food banks in Oakland, California, Curry was helping to deliver 300,000 meals per week to students suddenly forced to shelter at home and whose families didn’t know when they would see the next paycheck.
“I thought about what we could do here as a community,” Max says.
The gears started turning for the 16-year-old Member, a sophomore at the American School in Japan (ASIJ). He talked it through with his parents, Yumiko Murakami and Todd Moses.
With the school still paying its kitchen staff and bus drivers while it remained closed, Max wondered if those resources could be put to another use during the crisis.
“We started contacting facilities that needed help,” says Max. “We started planning everything out.”
With support from ASIJ headmaster Jim Hardin and financial donations from the ASIJ community, Max’s Musubi Project, named after the Japanese word for ties, launched in late April.
“I feel like everyone wanted a way to help out but there wasn’t really a way,” Max says. “We can’t really see each other but that doesn’t mean we can’t volunteer.”
“The Musubi Project grew out of Max’s awareness of the pandemic’s impact here in Japan and ASIJ’s willingness to reallocate its resources to support our local community,” wrote Hardin in a message to parents and students. “We are proud of Max and [other students] for the worldviews they clearly hold.”
On April 27, just 10 days after launching, the Musubi Project team made its first delivery to a local facility for mothers and children who had survived episodes of domestic abuse. Living circumstances for each family differed, but many mothers suddenly found themselves out of work and in a financially precarious situation.
(Image: Max Murakami-Moses and ASIJ's Ryosuke Suzuki)
Amid widespread public school closures throughout Tokyo, children could no longer count on free or subsidized daily lunches. With government assistance slow to make its way into the hands of those in need, many families on society’s margins were left to fend for themselves.
Every other day, the ASIJ bus now pulls up to four shelters with bags of rice and meals of noodles or rice bowls, as well as essentials like toilet paper and masks. According to one facility administrator, who asked for his name not be used to protect those living at the shelter, the deliveries are a source of both financial and physical relief for all who receive them.
“We are incredibly grateful for essential donations like these that help children continue to grow and lead normal lives,” says another supervisor.
The Musubi Project may be distributing simple meals, but the impact is so much more. For Children’s Day on May 5, deliveries included goodie bags with chocolates and candies for each child.
“[One supervisor] said the kids look out the window and see the van coming,” Max notes. “They get really excited now.”
For Mother’s Day a few days later, Musubi Project vans made their rounds with an additional surprise: a small bouquet for each mother and handwritten notes of encouragement from across the ASIJ community that reduced many mothers to tears. Meals may help the 70 families feel provided for, but extra touches like these remind them that they are not forgotten.
With the situation in Tokyo and beyond steadily improving, Max estimates that the Musubi Project will most likely continue to run through the first few weeks of June. When his school reopens, it’ll need its own cafeteria and school buses, but Max has already begun brainstorming ways to source more donations and keep the project going for both as long as it can and as long as it’s needed.
In a country where charitable giving is often an afterthought, Max says the experience has opened his eyes to how it’s possible to make a difference to so many people’s lives.
“I was surprised by how much of an impact it’s had,” Max says. “You can really help people who need it right now.”
Words: Owen Ziegler
Images: Kayo Yamawaki
Top image: Max Murakami-Moses
