The Thousand-Paper-Crane artwork was a volunteer project of that spanned for roughly 6 months. It all began when the elementary students at my summer camp were interested and inspired by Sadako Sasaki's story on her thousand-paper-crane wish just after she contracted leukemia (the atomic bomb disease). We believed that we could extend her hope to all those children currently in hospitals as well. The Alberta Children's Hospital had always been a warm welcoming environment for children to heal: we felt the need to give back to our hospital. As their assistant teacher, I gathered the interests and spirits of these young children into a project that empowered them to make an impact and give back to a hospital that they all loved. Of course, as a teenager who had used the hospital facility numerous times throughout the life, I was eager to give back to my hospital. The goal of folding 1000 paper cranes was not an easy process: initially, it was difficult to teach these elementary children how to fold origami paper cranes. Many times, it was also challenging to motivate children when they lost motivation by the sheer amount of paper cranes that still had to be fold.

I realized that the hardest part was trying to keep my little elementary students engaged in the project. Of course, folding a paper crane once or twice is quite an interesting process, however, the process becomes extremely repetitive.

I remember gradually seeing the quality of these paper cranes getting worse and worse? Was it because they were tired? Or was it because they were losing motivation? In the end, I realized that it was a mixture of both fatigue and disinterest. Therefore, I decided to change up my plan. I removed the baseline count of 20 paper cranes per person. Rather, I now shifted our focus from quantity to quality. In between, I often played videos in during folding sessions introducing Sadako Sasaki’s story and how she managed to continue folding despite having leukemia. Her resilience not only inspired these young kids to continue folding, but it also gave me the will to finish her dreams, to finish folding 1000 paper cranes.

At the end of the summer camp, we didn’t finish folding 1000 cranes; we were at roughly 800. However, even after the camp, we still continued to fold the rest of the paper cranes.

The most valuable lesson from this project was the mindset I both learned and imparted to my students: it is easy to become overwhelmed by the demanding nature of a task. However, by maintaining focus and enduring through challenges, one can achieve success. We believe that through art and creative expression, we are able to pass on Sadako's hope to every single child in the hospital who need it. In addition, through our yearly progress and fundraising, we were able to donate more than $1000 worth of toys to the Alberta Children's Hospital.