Debbie Graziano lives 2,000 miles from Park Ridge, but that didn’t keep her from folding more than 100 origami paper cranes for the Park Ridge Public Library.
The retired teacher from Carpenter and Washington Elementary Schools tore pages out of magazines and brochures from her library in Temecula, California to create the cranes for the Peace Takes Flight initiative, a summer project with a goal of collecting at least 1,000 origami cranes for public display in the Park Ridge Library.
“To feel I have a connection again (with Park Ridge) was very rewarding,” said Graziano. “I felt I was doing my part to not sever ties with my old community. It was very nice.”
Thanks to Graziano and other volunteers like her, Peace Takes Flight is set to exceed the 1,000 crane goal, said organizer Catherine Inserra of Kids Above All, a nonprofit organization that assists at-risk children.
“It’s so encouraging,” Inserra said of the outpouring of participation from members of the community of all ages. “It’s just been such a hard time with so many uncertainties, but people young and old have made connections to their peace cranes.”
The plan is for all of the cranes to be incorporated into a temporary art installation inside the library’s children’s department, she said.
Promoting peace, community
On July 27, Inserra and members of library staff began hanging cranes in front of the windows on string.
“It really is uplifting,” Inserra said. “The vibrant colors adorning the windows and seeing people participate in making this happen is just so positive.”
The project is a partnership between Kids Above All, the Park Ridge Library, and several local businesses that donated supplies, collected completed cranes or promoted the activity.
The project was proposed by Inserra as a way to promote peace, strengthen a sense of community, and share the story of Sadako Sasaki, a Japanese child who is said to have folded 1,000 origami cranes in the hope that her wish to recover from leukemia would come true.
Graziano, who heard of the project from her friend Inserra, admitted that learning origami was “frustrating at first” with only YouTube instructional videos to follow. Eventually, though, she caught on and the piles of origami cranes crew.
When the box she bought to ship the cranes in was large enough to hold additional cranes, Graziano decided to keep folding.
“I had to fill the box, you know,” she said.
Heidi Mjelde, who grew up in Park Ridge and now lives in central Texas, also got into the peace crane craze, folding more than 100 cranes in memory of her mother, Lois Kann.
A lover of books who took her children to the Park Ridge Library on a weekly basis, Kann would love the idea of the community folding paper cranes for the library, Mjelde said.
“I think she would have enjoyed it,” she said. “I thought it was a great project and it got people from all over involved.”
Park Ridge resident AJ Conroy joined her daughter Beatrice, 11, in folding cranes as part of a project for Beatrice’s Girl Scout Troop 45116 out of Roosevelt School. The scouts — and Conroy — ended up donating more than 230 cranes to the library, she said.
“It’s addictive,” Conroy said, laughing. “I would have the TV on and I would be folding and suddenly there would be 15 cranes in front of me by the end of the episode.”
Conroy called making the cranes “deeply satisfying,” but also a great experience for the scouts, who took turns teaching each other how to fold, sometimes using their own lingo to describe the steps.
“When we got to the children’s library, they had a huge box (of cranes) and we when we dumped ours in, it was amazing to see how many were already there,” Conroy said. “They are excited when they go to the library. They can point to the cranes and say, ‘I did that.'”
Embellished with nail polish
Michelle Park, owner of Pink Nail Lounge and Spa in Uptown Park Ridge, took her origami cranes to a new artistic level when she and her staff added faces and shiny embellishments in nail polish. They also created “nests” for the birds and tiny, baby cranes as well.
Dozens of the paper cranes are displayed in the front window of Park’s shop.
“I want everyone to see my work in these difficult times and receive the spirit of health and good fortune,” she said.
The library will decide how long the cranes are displayed, Inserra said. She added that she would like them to be spread out around the community and given to groups and people who participated in creating them “so they can continue to be a visible reminder of peace, literacy and better lives for kids.”
