Hands on Tokyo

After our break, we took the subway to Roppongi, and had a lot of difficulty finding Hands on Tokyo, our destination. I stared at a map for a good 10 minutes, and I could not figure out how to get there. Since Roppongi is full of expats, I decided to ask the next hakujin guy we came across for directions. We found a guy pretty quickly, and he was very nice. He looked at our map which he found confusing as well, and he helped us find Hands on Tokyo. Hands on Tokyo is a volunteer organization comprised of both Japanese and foreign nationals who are committed to making volunteer activities more accessible and committed to accelerating the growth of volunteerism in the Tokyo area. We participated in the 3R Project. 3R stands for reduce, reuse, and recycle. Hands on Tokyo receives used hotel toiletries from first-class hotels (e.g. The Peninsula, Ritz-Carlton), and provides the toiletries to people in need. This volunteer event had us empty shampoo bottles into 1.5 liter water bottles that would be provided to women's shelters and school children. Over the course of 2 hours, we emptied hundreds of shampoo bottles into the 1.5 liter bottles. Alexis and I were able to fill 2 1.5 liter bottles each. The head volunteer asked us to make sure that we got every last bit of shampoo out of every bottles, so we had to squeeze the bottle until no shampoo was left over. By the time we were done, our thumbs were sore. In addition, Alexis and I donated 100 toothbrushes and other hotel toiletries we collected from our hotels stays in Japan. The organization was very appreciative for assisting them with the project and our donation. We wish we could have done more during our trip, but we were happy we were able to make a small difference while we were here.