Slide show: Taste of Japan Benefit

How can we help? That question was foremost in minds across the UW–Madison campus when the earthquakes and tsunami hit Japan. Thoughts were soon turned into action steps — among them the formation of the Japanese Tsunami Relief (JTR) student organization. Graduate student Yumi Kusunoki and Sayako Akita, an exchange student from Japan, helped to create JTR and also served as co-coordinators of Taste of Japan, a March 24 event co-sponsored by Wisconsin Union Directorate Global Connections and International Student Services. Donations collected at the free event, along with those collected at multiple campus sites, will go to the Red Cross. At left, the check-in table was a busy destination as an estimated crowd of 230 — one of the largest in recent memory for a campus “taste of” gathering — arrived at the Red Gym.

Photos by Jeff Miller, University Communications