The tree planting this time was realized because a city gardener expressed an interest in the project after seeing the Kaki Tree Project exhibit at “The Edge of Awareness” exhibition held in 1998 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. Then the gardener met a teacher of the Family School and they officially applied for the project.
The Family School is located near the UN Headquarters, which is in the central part of the city, and it does not have a garden. So we negotiated with Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which is located a little distance away, and the tree planting ceremony was carried out on the 27th of April. Actually, Brooklyn Botanic Garden was interested in the Kaki Tree Project from before. During the workshop on the day, children drew pictures and wrote messages to the seedling of the bombed persimmon tree on a huge canvas. They powerfully read out peace messages under the beautiful blue sky. Since the ceremony day also coincided with the annual “Cherry Blossom Festival” of Brooklyn Botanic Garden, children sang “Sakura Sakura” in Japanese. However, because of the circumstances at that time, the persimmon tree was temporarily planted in a big pot during the ceremony. On the 11th of September that year, the World Trade Center buildings were destroyed by terrorist attacks and the Kaki Tree Project took the initiative in delivering messages to encourage children at the Family School.
The teacher informed us later on that unfortunately the persimmon tree died.
