SSALI students (left to right) Jung A Yoon of Korea, Ryunosuke Nishi of Japan and Ngan Nguyern of Vietnam with cranes they made for Jewish Community Free Clinic.

Origami Cranes from International Students
Go to Jewish Community Free Clinic

The Jewish Community Free Clinic is a Rohnert Park-based, free, volunteer-based medical clinic that offers free medical care for anyone in need, without regard to ethnicity, race or religion. As a part of its fund-raising, the clinic plans to give an origami paper crane to anyone who makes a donation to the clinic.

So the clinic asked Sonoma State American Language Institute to make the cranes. Over the past two months, all of the 65 international students, faculty and staff members at SSALI joined the Paper Crane Project, and donated 872 cranes to the clinic on November 30. The clinic is acknowledging the contribution on December 14 at SSALI's graduation party for this semester.

Origami, the art of paper folding, is popular play among children in East Asian countries. In those countries, one thousand paper cranes are often folded as a "Get Well" gift.

SSALI students' favorite place to fold cranes was the SSALI Café, the small room next to the main office. Faculty and staff members often saw a group of students making cranes during lunchtime. Asian students taught how to make cranes to their classmates from other countries, and many students got excited about their first cranes. Most of the Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Japanese students already knew how to fold cranes.

However, while folding cranes together, some of them realized that the Korean, Chinese, and Taiwanese ways to fold cranes was different from the Japanese way and enjoyed sharing their own ways with one another. Some students even took home pieces of paper, made dozens of cranes, and brought them back to school.

SSALI is the English language program at SSU. This fall semester, 65 international students have been studying through the program. In a typical semester, about 65% of the students are Asian, 15% are European, 15% are Latin American, and 5% are African or Middle Eastern. The majority of the students are 18-25 years old, and many of them are studying at SSALI to acquire English skills proficient enough to transfer to degree programs at universities or colleges in the United States.

With nearly 100,000 uninsured in Marin and Sonoma counties, the Jewish Community Free Clinic feel they must take action regarding access to health care for the uninsured. Approximately 100,000 immigrants, single parents, students, elderly and part-time or unemployed residents in Marin and Sonoma counties are uninsured and cannot afford medical treatment.