Celebrate the New Year with Osechi Ryori and the Japantown Foundation

Part of the Japantown Foundation's mission is to support cultural activities in Japantown and in the Japanese American community. We usually do this through our grants program, but once a year in January, we put on our own cultural event centered around osechi ryori, the traditional food and presentation prepared to celebrate the New Year.

In osechi ryori, certain dishes are carefully prepared and presented on New Year’s Day to wish for good health, happiness, and prosperity.

Our osechi ryori event will be on Thursday, January 8, 2015, from 6-8:30 p.m. at the Hotel Kabuki in Japantown. Buy tickets or sponsorships.

Pabu, Sanraku, Sushi Ran, Yama-sho, and Delica will once again prepare dishes that reflect a particular regional style of cooking of Japan that will serve as an added treat to the traditional Japanese New Year dishes that will be prepared.

Many nikkei (Japanese Americans) and nihonjin (Japanese nationals) families no longer have the time or knowledge to make osechi dishes. So in a tribute to remember our own cultural heritage and to share this special tradition with individuals interested in Japanese culture and tradition, our annual osechi ryori event was created to provide guests time to reflect, reminisce, and respect the symbolic meaning of each of the dishes offered as well as partake in great food that cannot be found in any restaurant or local market.

Join us this coming January to experience an authentic and exquisite Japanese New Year Banquet.

We have been so grateful for the overwhelming support from our past sponsors and want to say thank you for supporting Osechi Ryori 2015, again.

Buy tickets or sponsorships online.

Aya Ino Joins Japantown Foundation Board of Directors

The San Francisco Japantown Foundation board of directors elected Aya Ino as a director on September 15, 2014.

Aya is Director of Development and Communications at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California (JCCCNC), overseeing and directing the fund development, marketing, and membership departments of the organization.

A native San Franciscan, Aya grew up in the heart of Japantown attending Nihonmachi Little Friends (NLF), the Japanese Bilingual Bicultural Program (JBBP) and has performed with San Francisco Taiko Dojo since 1990.

In 2011 she served as a founding faculty member of a start-up public high school in Manhattan, New York City, writing grants and developing a national standards-based curriculum in Government and Economics. Aya graduated from the University of California Los Angeles in 2008 and earned her Masters in Education from Columbia University in 2012.

In 2010, the Japantown Foundation awarded Aya with a matching grant for “What’s Next for J-Town? A Young Adults’ Perspective on San Francisco’s Japantown.” The research project focused on the next generation of young adults and their interests, and was followed by a collective analysis on perspectives of San Francisco’s Japantown.

Kathy Nelsen, Director of Spas at Joie de Vivre Hospitality, Joins Board of Directors

Kathy Nelsen, Director of Spas at Joie de Vivre Hospitality, has joined our board of directors. The board elected her as a director at its April 21, 2014, meeting.

Joie de Vivre hospitality -- with Chip Conley, Kathy, and Your Space Design -- renovated the spa, now the Kabuki Springs & Spa (kabukisprings.com), in 1998. The location has been home to a public bath since 1972.

Kathy has traveled extensively worldwide seeking the waters, the beauty and the serenity of other cultures and their bathing rituals to create a paradigm for the spa experience in the Bay Area. She opened her first spa, Miracle Baths, in a converted Baptist church on Fillmore Street in San Francisco in 1977. She has opened Indian Springs in Calistoga, the Claremont Spa in Oakland, and is currently the Director of Kabuki Springs & Spa in San Francisco, as well as the Director of Spa for all Joie de Vivre Hotels.

We're proud to welcome Kathy, a Japantown business leader, to our board!

Make a Year-End Donation to the Japantown Foundation

During this holiday season, the San Francisco Japantown Foundation expresses our appreciation for your continued support.

Your year-end donation will allow us to further our efforts serving Japantown as its community foundation. Your contribution will strengthen our activities and initiatives.

We continue to provide resources to the Japantown community. This year we disbursed $35,000 in grants to 11 nonprofit organizations, bringing our total grant making since 2006 to approximately $635,000. See the list of our 2013 grantees at the end of this email.

We find ways to build partnerships that support Japantown. We entered a philanthropic partnership with Hotel Kabuki, a Joie de Vivre Hotel, in which we will receive funds raised through the hotel’s You Can Make a Difference program. In the last quarter, we already received $7,099.24 through Hotel Kabuki's generosity. One hundred percent of the funds we receive from Hotel Kabuki are dedicated to our grants program. We also welcomed John Henry, Regional Managing Director at Joie de Vivre Hospitality, to our board of directors.

We are strategically refining our role in the community. We continue to invest in Japantown as a geographic and cultural anchor for diverse and changing Japanese American, Japanese, and broader communities in the San Francisco Bay Area.

We are also exploring initiatives related to: serving as a home for donors interested in supporting Japantown through estate gifts; providing seed grants to support research and development for innovative projects benefiting Japantown; and assisting those interested in supporting Japantown’s future through new financial support and sustained philanthropy.

Finally, your donation will honor the memory and accomplishments of Hatsuro "Hats" Aizawa, a founding member of the Japantown Foundation board of directors and a lifelong community leader and philanthropist together with his wife Amey. Hats passed away on October 20 and he was generous enough to ask his friends and associates to donate to the Japantown Foundation and to JCCCNC. He was an incredible human being and we miss him terribly.

Hats (like the late Jack Hirose) was part of our all-volunteer board managing an organization with no paid staff. Hats and Jack served with us because they believed in Japantown’s future and its role as a home for the Japanese American community.

Please help us support Japantown with your donation online. Checks can also be made payable to “The San Francisco Japantown Foundation” and mailed to board president Donald K. Tamaki c/o Minami Tamaki LLP, 260 Post Street, 8th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94108. The Japantown Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. All contributions are tax deductible to the extent provided by law.

If we can answer any questions you have about our efforts this year, or alternative ways to donate, please contact board member Keith Kamisugi at keith@japantownfoundation.org or 415-874-5550. He would be happy to assist you.

JAPANTOWN FOUNDATION 2013 GRANTEES

• Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach ($1,000)

• GenRyu Arts ($1,000)

• Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California ($5,000)

• Kimochi, Inc. ($5,000)

• Kokoro Assisted Living, Inc. ($1,000)

• National Japanese American Historical Society ($5,000)

• Nichi Bei Foundation ($5,000)

• Nihonmachi Little Friends ($5,000)

• Nihonmachi Street Fair ($1,000)

• Parent Teacher Community Council of the Japanese Bilingual Bicultural Program ($1,000)

• Sakura Matsuri Inc. ($5,000)

In Memory of Hats Aizawa

Our dear friend Hatsuro "Hats" Aizawa passed away on October 20, 2013. Hats was a founding board member of the San Francisco Japantown Foundation. Hats and his wife Amey were among the original major donors that helped establish the Japantown Foundation.

We express our deepest and heartfelt condolences to Amey and the Aizawa family. Hats will be sorely missed.

Hats was born in 1924 on Post Street between Laguna and Buchanan Streets and lived there until he was 17. He and Amey have spent a lifetime serving Japantown and the Japanese American community through his leadership of numerous organizations.

As President of Aizawa Associates and later Aizawa & Furuta, Hats ran his own advertising and graphic art business for over 45 years. He served 25 years on the Japan Society of Northern California Board of Directors, and was also a board member and vice president of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce of Northern California, and a member of the San Francisco-Osaka Sister City Committee.

He was a Commissioner and later Trustee of the Asian Art Museum from 1988 to 2008.

In recognition of Mr. Aizawa’s many contributions, the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco presented him with the Foreign Minister’s Commendation in 2008.

In 2011, the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco conferred on Hats the Order of Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays, one of the Japanese government’s highest honors.

UPDATE NOV. 3, 2013 - The following text is from an obituary published by the Nichi Bei Weekly and reproduced here by permission.

S.F. Japantown community leader Hats Aizawa dies

Nichi Bei Weekly Report
October 31, 2013

Longtime San Francisco Japanese American community leader and philanthropist Hatsuro “Hats” Aizawa passed away Oct. 20. He was 89.

Aizawa was born Aug. 26, 1924, and raised in San Francisco's Japantown, according to the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California.

Aizawa was a student at Lowell High School, when he and his family were incarcerated at the Tanforan Assembly Center in San Bruno, Calif. and the Topaz (Central Utah) concentration camp during World War II.

He later earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from University of California at Berkeley.

Aizawa later opened Aizawa & Furuta, an advertising company.

He held numerous community leadership positions, serving on the boards of the Japan Society of Northern California, the Japanese Chamber of Commerce of Northern California and the San Francisco-Osaka Sister City Association.

Aizawa served as a co-chair of the Japantown Centennial steering committee, which planned events to celebrate the 100th anniversary of San Francisco’s Japantown in 2006.

Aizawa was a founding member of the San Francisco Japantown Foundation, and along with his wife Amey, were among the original major donors that helped establish it.

“Many of the Nisei generation helped build the community we now live in but they normally did it in a very quiet manner. Hats Aizawa was no exception but he did in a very visible way,” Allen Okamoto, who served on the San Francisco Japantown Foundation board with Aizawa, said in an e-mail.

“Hats contributed not only his time and talent but was a major contributor to many community organizations. He volunteered with a smile and great passion. He was also (among) the most friendly and popular persons I have known,” said Okamoto, who, along with Aizawa, were among the co-chairs of the San Francisco-Osaka Sister City Association.

Aizawa also served as honorary co-chair of the Nihonmachi Little Friends capital campaign.

“Hats left a wonderful legacy to the community and will always be remembered for his dignified leadership and philanthropy. His shoes will certainly be hard to fill, but he will remain a role model at the highest level for all of us to try to follow,” NLF Executive Director Cathy Inamasu said in an e-mail.

“NLF feels so blessed to have had him as an honorary co-chair of our first capital campaign, and to have had his encouragement, advice and generous support through the years. Hats felt that the children are the future of our community, and we will maintain that vision as we continue our work with families,” she added.

Aizawa was a member of the city’s Asian Art Commission and later a trustee of the Asian Art Museum from 1988 to 2008.

The Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco presented him with the Foreign Minister’s Commendation in 2008, and the Order of Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays, one of the Japanese government’s highest honors, in 2011.

Aizawa’s role in establishing the San Francisco Japantown Foundation “illustrates that Hats had one foot firmly rooted in the Japanese American community and humble beginnings, and the other foot firmly planted to the future and his legacy to preserve San Francisco Japantown for years to come,” president Donald K. Tamaki said in an updated version of the remarks he shared Dec. 11, 2011 at then Consul General of Japan in San Francisco Hiroshi Inomata’s residence, when Aizawa was presented with a kunsho.

According to the JCCCNC, Aizawa is survived by his wife Amey, brother Seiji (Vivian) and sister Kashiwa (George) Hatamiya as well as nieces, nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews.