After focusing on many projects in the Manhattan community, the Manhattan High Red Cross Club is preparing a project with a more global focus.

“We have had a couple of different community service projects, ” senior Anvesha Sharda said. “We have volunteered at the library’s book sale, and we also helped out with the food drive before Spring Break. Our next big projects are with our community service sector.”

Red Cross is the general name for both the school and community side of the extracurricular club.

“Red Cross is kind of broken up into the International Humanitarian Law Youth Action Campaign (IHL-YAC) which is the community service side of our Red Cross Club,” Sharda said. “Then, we also have the side of our Red Cross club that does activities at the school and our school meetings.”

The IHL-YAC is focusing on their campaign about how nuclear weapons result in armed conflict.

“As part of the campaign, the final event will be having a meeting here at the school on Friday to go over our IHL-YAC PowerPoint and contribute to our goal of folding 1,000 paper cranes,” Sharda said.

One of the IHL-YAC’s main projects this year is to fold 1,000 paper cranes in honor of a victim of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings during WWII. The story follows a young girl named Sadako who developed leukemia after her town of Hiroshima was bombed. Her friends told her that if a sick person folded 1,000 cranes, they would soon get better. Before her death, she folded paper cranes, praying for a safe recovery. Her story is well-known in Japan and has spread worldwide.

“We are at around 400 paper cranes finished, but we still have quite a few events lined up,” Sharda said. “If anyone wants to fold paper cranes and drop them off in Mr. [John] Barstow’s room, that would be awesome. Sadako Sasaki’s story has become very famous, and because she believes in the legend of 1,000 paper cranes, and our topic is related to nuclear weapons, we are kind of paying her homage by folding cranes to spread awareness on the topic of this year.”

When the 1,000 folded cranes are completed, the club will display them in the library with a little help from another Manhattan High club.

“We are collaborating with the Art Club to make it into an art installation in the Library,” Sharda said. “So in the Commons, where you can sit and each lunch, you’ll be able to see our cranes on display when we are done.”

The Red Cross club and IHL-YAC have some more plans to wrap up the year.

“Last year, our campaign was selected to go present at the International Red Cross Headquarters in [Washington] D.C., so we are hoping to do that again this year,” Sharda said. “If our applications are selected, then one representative will go in August. On the Red Cross Club side of things, we might be taking a field trip at the end of the year. Other than that, we hope to meet with some medical professionals and get some more community service in.”