A longtime local recording artist has donated a percentage of his CD sales earnings to two different causes last Wednesday. <\/p>\n
John Ichihara presented a $500 check donation to Nick Nishikawa and Yoichi Matsumura of the non-profit group NMI Japan Disaster Relief at the Hyatt Regency Saipan.<\/p>\n
Ichihara then proceeded to the San Vicente Church and handed another $500 donation to parish priest Rey D. Rosal and parish and finance council members Maria Deleon Guerrero, Rita Guerrero, and Lisa Ada.<\/p>\n
In an interview, Ichihara said that he initially recorded his original composition, Si Yu\u2019os Ma\u2019ase\u2019 Asagua-hu, with his daughter Roselle to donate 10 percent of his profits to the church.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut when I completed the CD, it was on March 11, when the earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan,\u201d he told Saipan Tribune. \u201cIf I can help the church, maybe I could help Japan, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ichihara, who has Japanese lineage because of his grandfather, decided to donate another 10 percent of the proceeds to help the victims of the Japan tragedy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have lots of friends from different parts of Japan. I love Japan,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Matsumura said Ishikawa\u2019s donation will be among the monetary donations that will be turned over by NMI Japan Disaster Relief to the Consular Office of Japan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re glad that many people supported his [Ishikawa] fundraising. I\u2019m sure the Japanese people will be very pleased,\u201d according to Nishikawa.<\/p>\n
For his part, Fr. Rosal said the Ishikawa family has always been very religious and supportive of the church.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very happy and proud that he composed a song, shared it with others, and helped a good cause,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ichihara said he hoped to sell more CDs during the 30th Annual Flame Tree Arts Festival to meet his target goal of 1,000 CDs sold.<\/p>\n
He is confident that he will reach his goal and sell more of the song he wrote for his wife, Brigida, who appears in the CD cover.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am overwhelmed by the tremendous support of the people when they found out that I\u2019m donating part of the proceeds for Japan and San Vicente Church. I invite them to buy a copy of the CD for a good cause.\u201d<\/p>\n
To buy the CD, contact Ichihara at 235-7423 or email john.ichihara@gmail.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A longtime local recording artist has donated a percentage of his CD sales earnings to two different causes last Wednesday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}