nwasianweekly.com
Nov. 17, 2007

Photo provided by Children’s Home Society of Washington

Robert Fujioka (far right, back row), his wife Holly (third from right, back row) and their eight adopted children are a truly multicultural family.

Adoption of three brings grand total to eight

You likely won’t hear anyone in the Fujioka family say, “Eight is enough.”

Robert and Holly Fujioka will have eight adopted boys when their most recent three sons experience adoption finalization on Nov.16, in Tacoma, as part of National Adoption Day events.

“We recently moved from Redmond to Longview to get a bigger, more affordable home for all our sons,” said Robert. “We purchased a five-bedroom house. There’s probably room for more kids, but we’ll have to get a bigger car!”

National Adoption Day is a collaborative national effort to raise awareness about the 114,000 children in foster care waiting to find permanent, loving families and to celebrate all families who adopt. In Washington state last year, there were more than 2,300 children available for adoption.

The three Fujioka boys are part of the innovative Dave Thomas Foundation’s Wendy’s Wonderful Kids Program, moving children from foster care into permanent, loving adoptive homes.

The boys are being adopted through the Department of Social and Health Services.

Now in its seventh year, National Adoption Day makes the dreams of thousands of children come true by working with courts, judges, attorneys and advocates to finalize their adoptions into permanent families and to celebrate adoption.

For more information on Wendy’s Wonderful Kids Program, visit wendyswonderfulkids.org.

Organ donor’s family will pay tribute at Rose Parade

The photos of their smiling faces — many of them still young — look as if they were taken just yesterday. But the faces gracing the Donate Life Rose Parade float are those of organ, eye and tissue donors who, in their passing, saved, healed and gave hope to thousands of people in need.

One of those faces belonged to local Johnathan Sim — an unexpected organ donor at the age of 33.
Johnathan’s widow, Kelly Sim, will travel to Pasadena, Calif., on Dec 1 with their children, Nathan and Natalie, to decorate a “floragraph,” which will travel the Rose Parade route on Jan. 1, 2008. Floragraphs are artistic portraits created by using spices, seeds, and other organic materials to cover a digitized photograph of the individual.

Johnathan and Kelly both came from South Korea when they were very young. As adults, they settled in Renton and he worked for international relief and development organization World Vision. This work allowed him to do what he loved most: saving the lives of children around the world in such countries as North Korea, Sri Lanka, Uganda and Zambia.

After Johnathan died in 2005, his wife knew that the 33-year-old father of two would have wanted nothing more than to leave a legacy of life for others, which he did by donating his kidneys, liver and heart.

Sim left a number of amazing legacies — his own family, his organs and, in the isolated village of Twachiyanda, Zambia, the Johnathan Sim Legacy School. Built from donations raised in Sim’s memory through World Vision, the school houses 430 children in the elementary grades, many of them orphaned because their parents have died of AIDS.

“Johnathan’s signature line on his e-mails read, ‘My personal mission: to be a change agent who leaves a legacy of added value,’” his wife recounted. “Johnathan was all about leaving a legacy — he would have wanted nothing more than to give life to others, even in his last days.”

YWCA breaks ground on new Learning Center

The YWCA will break ground on Nov. 28 on the new $3 million Learning Center, to serve women and families at the redeveloped Greenbridge public housing community in White Center.

The YWCA Learning Center will feature classrooms, state-of-the-art communications and computer learning technology, a Career Development Center, a King County library branch and other programs and services.

“With this beautiful new facility, the YWCA and its partners will be able to better serve local women and families, building opportunity and self-sufficiency in one of the most economically challenged communities in the region,” said Sue Sherbrooke, CEO of the YWCA of Seattle-King County-Snohomish County.

More than 60 percent of the residents in the immediate neighborhood are immigrants, and the area includes the poorest census tract in King County.

The Learning Center will be built at Southwest 97th Street and Eighth Avenue Southwest, on the campus of Park Lake Homes, a public housing community that the King County Housing Authority is redeveloping as Greenbridge.

The YWCA is partnering with the King County Library System, which is contributing to construction and will operate the branch library.

The 8,000-square-foot, single-story Learning Center will be constructed to “Built Green” design standards, with as many environmentally friendly, sustainable building elements as possible. Built Green is a nonprofit, residential building program of the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties.

This is the fifth project made possible by the YWCA’s $43 million capital campaign.

For more information, visit www.ywcaworks.org.

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