Matsuri and funds for Kashmir quake

Couple of weeks ago I attended Matsuri, a Japanese festival organized by the Santa Fe Jin , a Japanese intercultural society in Santa Fe. Anita, my wife is an active member. She lived in Japan for one year and can speak Japanese fluently. In addition she also had a booth as a part of her work as a financial planner with Waddell & Reed. Here is a picture of her booth:

The Matsuri had several cultural programs from Karate to Iaido (sword) to Taiko (drums). The Taiko drumming was very impressive:

Then there were several workshops for things like origami, booths from vendors, and most importantly food :-). There was also a silent auction for artifacts Japanese kimonos. Thanks to the organisers of this festival, I was able to do some fundraising for the Kashmir earthquake. I put a home cooked Indian dinner for four as an item in the silent auction. It was sold for $115 to Dr. Norm Hamer who also works in Los Alamos. All in all I was able to raise $132.

After topping it up, I finally donated $200 to www.mercycorps.org for use towards the earthquake victims in Kashmir. I would urge all of you to donate the most you can so that there is no humanitarian disaster in Kashmir this winter.