NARA--A giant baseball glove stitched together by 2,000 children from across the earthquake-devastated Tohoku region and elsewhere was donated to the Great Buddha of Nara on Dec. 26.
NARA--A giant baseball glove stitched together by 2,000 children from across the earthquake-devastated Tohoku region and elsewhere was donated to the Great Buddha of Nara on Dec. 26.
The project to dedicate the 3.6-meter-long leather glove to the colossal statue at Todaiji temple was the brainchild of a junior high school baseball club coach in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture.
The teacher said he wanted to create a symbolic object to boost the spirits of young people in the region, which was devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami as well as the subsequent Fukushima nuclear disaster, before the fifth anniversary of the March 11 disaster next year.
Nobuhiro Umehara, a baseball glove-maker in Nara Prefecture, helped the project become a reality by organizing a drive to let kids from around the region and elsewhere participate in creating the big baseball mitt.
Throughout the year, the glove traveled to ballparks, venues of summer festivals and other events across the Tohoku region to let a total of more than 2,000 children help stitch the glove together.
Children from Nara gave the mitt its finishing touches before it was dedicated to the 15-meter-high Great Buddha the day after Christmas.