WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Representative Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) announced that she received over 4,000 origami peace cranes from community members of Berks and Chester Counties to send to Hiroshima for the G7 Summit. Houlahan passed the cranes along to representatives from the Japanese Prefecture of Okinawa who are facilitating sending them to Hiroshima. They helped collect 6,000 additional cranes from still more people across the entire United States, bringing the total number of cranes collected to over 10,000.

The idea of sending paper cranes came to Houlahan after she was part of a Congressional Delegation to Japan in February where she visited the Children's Peace Monument that features a statue of a large origami crane and thousands of paper cranes. These cranes and the monument are in honor of the story of Sadako Sasaki, a Japanese girl who died of cancer caused by radiation from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima. The cranes have come to symbolize the desire for peace and a world free from the threat of nuclear war. Houlahan asked her community to fold the cranes to call the attention of world leaders attending the G7 next month to the ever-present threat of nuclear war. This concern has become even more acute in light of Russia’s recent threat to use nuclear weapons in the unjust war on Ukraine.

“I couldn’t be more thankful for our community’s outpouring of support for this project,” said Houlahan. “Our goal was to make 1,000 cranes to honor Sadako’s story, and we greatly exceeded that ambitious goal. This project was a way for our community to come together to promote peace around this world event. I look forward to seeing our cranes make it to Hiroshima and to having our community’s hard work in the pursuit of peace on display. I hope the world's leaders take note of our concern and the desire for peace.”

Houlahan is an Air Force veteran, an engineer, a serial entrepreneur, an educator, and a nonprofit leader. She represents Pennsylvania’s 6th Congressional District, which encompasses Chester County and southern Berks County. She serves on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. She is the recipient of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Abraham Lincoln Leadership for America Award which “recognizes members who demonstrate the bipartisan leadership and constructive governing necessary to move our country forward” and the Congressional Management Foundation’s 2022 Democracy Award for best Constituent Services in Congress.

###