On January 15th, 2021, we (the Japanese Club) held an event where us officers packaged Japanese/Asian-related goods and sent them to our members. With these troubling times of CoVID-19 we wanted to make sure the Japanese Club was a place for our members to connect with each other. With this in mind, we came up with the idea of sending out goods and souvenirs to our members to make them feel further included in the club! These packages contained items like Asian snacks, a japanese fan, animal squishies made from Japan, and just a hint of Japan’s pop culture, Pokemon.

We officers wanted to make sure this event was handled very safely and cautiously. By following CoVID-19 safety guidelines, we made sure to sanitize ourselves, wear gloves and masks, and make zero-contact with every delivery. Furthermore, for the privacy and protection of the members we just made sure no one shared their address and had them fill out a form asking for any exposure to CoVID-19 or symptoms.

To describe our process of distributing these bags to everyone, we first had to decide what contents we wanted in the packages. However, we had placed constraints for ourselves such as, only buying items in bulk, a $100 budget, and including items that represented Japanese/Asian culture. After finalizing our plan and buying the needed supplies, we had 2 officers package everything while wearing masks and gloves so that we had no contact with the contents to ensure maximum safety. To deliver the gift bags, we split up the officers into different cars and went on our ways, driving to each house and setting their bags at their front door or mailbox, whilst following CoVID-19 guidelines. Once delivered, the receiver was sent a message that they may grab their bag without making any direct contact with any officer.

In order to satisfy and make each package somewhat unique for our members, we took two weeks to plan the event. In addition, we asked for allergies and special requests with their bags. One of which was specific drawings they wanted.

←　All drawings were hand-drawn by our officer, Zainab Beg.

One recipient even made a Tik Tok video of her bag to show off how grateful she was! We officers had a lot of fun planning and setting up this event and we hope everyone else did too. Our favorite part of this event was packing everyone’s bag and tying their names onto each one to give it a unique feel. But it was also one of the most difficult parts, making sure everyone had an equal amount of food and goods.

After the event, we asked for some feedback and received many good comments! 

“The event was good! I got to try Japanese candy and received a few cool and cute looking items. I hope we do this again in the future,”

“it was nice to look forward to something after a long day of school,”

“I thought it was thoughtful for the J-club leaders/anyone involved to hand out Japanese/Asian themed items in the care packages. It was a cute way to express creativity and fun during these times.”

Many participants shared pictures of their bags which can be found here.