Story: Ishinomaki Shoshinkai Foundation, Kujira no Shippo Vocational Support Center for the Disabled
Trainee: Ms. Ayako Ogawa (woman/ age 29 at the time/ mental disability)
Manager: Ms. Kayoko Abe
Employee: Mr. Takamasa Tada
Kujira no Shippo Group Home Himawari, Life Support Staff Ms. Yasuko Abe
The trainees had saved a whole freezer full of the bread they had made at work just in case. This turned out to be useful.
Kayoko: You were making bread just in case something happened, remember?
Ogawa: Yes.
Kayoko: That day, the earthquake happened right after they finished the bread. They were working until 15:00. Starting that night, we handed out the bread first to the elderly, then small children, then elementary school students, and then junior high school students. The people who evacuated to the Seiyu-kan Building got by eating that bread from that day.
There were some people who said all kinds of heartless things to us. But after someone had told them, “The bread you got was from those disabled people,” those same people said, “We’re sorry. We said all those things, but you were actually the first ones to help us.”
The publicly-owned designated shelters usually provided instant rice and water and such, but the Seiyu-kan Building was a private institute.
Yasuko: I don’t think there were any reserves here in the Seiyu-kan Building, but there were blankets in storage to get through the cold.
What kind of bread was this?
Kayoko: They were large loaves. We had around 100 of them (in the freezer).
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