Spotlight on Sanraku, Culinary Partner of Our New Year’s Celebration

The San Francisco Japantown Foundation’s special New Year’s Celebration on January 8, 2015, will feature osechi ryori, the traditional food and presentation prepared to celebrate the New Year. Because of the complex preparation required for the dishes, we’ve partnered with several restaurants to provide our guests with the most authentic experience possible.

One of these restaurants is Sanraku (sanraku.com), a Japanese restaurant with locations in the Union Square area and in the Metreon entertainment center. The highly rated Sanraku celebrated its 25th anniversary in September. The restaurant was a culinary partner of our 2013 event and we're thrilled they're returning for our 2015 event.

Sanraku is planning on preparing a cod dish similar to the one below (actual dish subject to change), and we look forward to sharing their delicious presentation with our guests at our January 8 event.

We're honored to have Sanraku partnering with us on our event. The restaurant's first location opened in 1989, specializing in first class quality Japanese cuisine. In 1992, they added upscale "Sanraku Four Seasons" next door, which included a new sushi bar. Sanraku opened up it's Metreon location in 1999.

Sanraku strives to serve the highest quality Japanese food, consisting only of fresh and quality ingredients. "We strive to be Japan's best ambassadors of its culinary arts and culture," states the restaurant on its website. Known for authentic and delicious cuisine, Sanraku offers some of the city's finest Japanese cuisine options.

The San Francisco Japantown Foundation osechi ryori event will be on Thursday, January 8, 2015, from 6-8:30 p.m. at the Hotel Kabuki in Japantown. This is the San Francisco Japantown Foundation's primary fundraiser and allows us to continue providing grants to Japantown and Japanese American-related nonprofit organizations.

Buy your tickets or sponsorships here, or by contacting Keith Kamisugi at keith@japantownfoundation.org.

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)