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DKG Practice/Program

My Hakken Journey

By Kathy Wanchek

I have always loved planning our Delta Kappa Gamma California State
Organization (DKGCA) Area XIV spring conferences. I loved doing the
research and organizing the information afterward. In 2023, I decided
to learn more about the culture of Japan—site of our newest DKG state
organization—to see if there
was anything that would
interest our members. The
research was fun and very
complex! As part of that
research, I read Sadako and
the Thousand Paper Cranes
Kathy Wanchek opening (Coerr, 1977), a historical
the Hakken Conference. novel that many American
school children read as part
of their curriculum. When I shared my ideas with the area
presidents, they decided they wanted to learn the art of
origami as our main focus. We would make cranes!
Sadako was 2 years old when the atomic bomb was
dropped on Hiroshima, her hometown. She was blown out
of a window, but, when her mother found her, she appeared
to be all right. Sadako continued to thrive until she was Japanese members arriving at Peace Park.
12 years old, when, like many other children who
had survived the bomb, she came down with leukemia. While she was in the hospital,
a friend visited and told her the legend of the thousand cranes: if a sick person
folded a thousand paper cranes, they would be granted a wish to get well. Sadako
started right away creating 1,000 cranes so she could get well. Sadly, she died before reaching
that goal, but her school friends worked to complete that mission and formed a club as a
promise to continue their friendship after they left school. The club expanded,
and they donated money for the building of a statue of Sadako. This
was the start of the Children’s Peace Monument, which can be found
in the middle of the Hiroshima Peace Park. An engraving at the bottom
of the statue reads, “This is our cry, this is our prayer, for building
peace in the world.” The folding of cranes became a children’s
peace dream. Teachers who teach about Japan will often have
their classes fold paper cranes. If they have no way to get
them to Japan, they hang them in their classrooms. However,
cranes from all over the world arrive at the Peace Park to be
displayed in a bid for peace in our world.
I wondered how—once the cranes our DKG state
organization members folded were finished and
strung—we could get them to Japan. I called Janis
Barr, a former California State Organization
White crane with DKGCA logo. president who had been in office when the first

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