Primo Japan, which is expanding through stores throughout Japan, provides continuing on-the-ground support to areas afflicted by earthquakes and floods primarily through the members of our company-wide CSR activity, the PRIMO RING PROJECT. This report below details the two projects we conducted in 2017.

 

1: "Omoide Kaeru (Bringing Back Memories)" Photograph Cleaning Activity (Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, September 28, 2017)

Primo Japan has participated in the Photograph Cleaning Activity organized by the NPO Omoide Kaeru every year since 2012. In the Photograph Cleaning Activity, the aim is to restore photographs found at locations throughout the country that have suffered successive disasters such as typhoons and flooding, but whose owners are unknown, by carefully washing the dirt from them, and then attempting to return them to their original owners wherever possible. This year, 6 employees from the Tohoku and Kanto areas participated, working mainly on restoring photographs from Chiba Prefecture. For the restoration work, participants used a brush with water to gently clear away mud, soil, and bacteria from the corroded ink of the photographs. Applying water so that the photographs do not warp, and working carefully so that the faces of those pictured in each photograph are not erased, participants continued their work cleaning the photographs in the hopes that all the memories contained in just a single photograph might reach the owner, and were able to work on around 300 photographs in total.

2: A Children's Christmas Party Held in Kesennuma (Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, December 14, 2017)

The Kesennuma Children's Christmas Party has been a scene full of smiling faces each year since it was first held in December 2011. In 2017, 99 local parents and children, along with 222 members of the general public, gathered together in the Kesennuma Children's Hall, making this year's celebration the largest yet. The children were delighted when 8 Primo Japan employees appeared dressed as Santa Claus and his Reindeer. Following input from our colleagues who are also mothers raising small children, the group enjoyed making paper crafts using stickers that even small children could enjoy and also prepared a small gift for each child from Santa Claus. The sight of everyone singing Christmas songs and the children's enthusiastic singing voices gave our colleagues who participated a feeling of happiness and encouragement.

This home-grown Christmas party is held at the start of Tohoku's long, harsh winter, but encouraging words from those who joined the party such as "We look forward to this every year", and "I have even more brothers and sisters from this year", have made us want to continue deepening our interactions with local people in 2018 and beyond.

Primo Japan will continue to engage in various CSR activities through the PRIMO RING PROJECT in the future.