Send Paper Cranes Around the World and Brighten Someone’s Day with Fold Me In
This is a guest post by Andrey from foldme.in.
One of my first memories from kindergarten was drawing a Christmas tree, folding it in half and then cutting it out with small scissors. I got my first “red badge” — a sign of achievement that a single kid got for a particular task. I was about 4 years old and I must have felt so proud because I still remember it.
I’ve always liked crafts and making things with your hands. I love the peace you experience when you channel all your attention into the thing that you’re doing — you have to be precise as well as patient. It’s much more than just physical — it also had a mental side, which calms me a lot.
The paper crane was the first traditional Japanese origami that I learned to do. I liked the symbol it represented and I’ve used it a few time as a non traditional birthday gifts — I was amazed by how much people liked it.
So time passed by but the idea of origami stayed with me. I was folding paper cranes just for fun, in the evenings or just to get break from my intense developer daily work. But at some point I didn’t know what to do with them! One day I entered the subway and as I was at the very first station, I decided to try something — I left a small crane on one seat and moved few meters away. People starting entering at the next stations and most of them were just looking at it, but sitting right next seat. I remember the look of the woman that picked it up.
I left at the next station, but somehow wanted to know if she liked it. Does it make her feel better or at least smile for a second? What happened next — hopefully not throwing it away! I was curious where that crane went — maybe she was living in another city and just visiting? And maybe if she knew what my idea was, she would continue it — gift the crane to someone else?
That’s how Fold Me In was born — I wanted to give away cranes to people to make their life a bit better. Maybe just a tiny bit, a flashed smile, but it was still something. And track that crane’s journey, hopefully all around the world!
The mechanics are very simple — I gave each crane an unique name, took unique photo of it and stamped a little label with a url and code on it’s bottom side. When people pick it up, they can open the website, read the idea and actually become part of the journey of that specific named crane. They are instructed to continue it’s journey and just re-gift it!
It’s all a non-profit effort — everything’s free and I’m actually spending my own money for materials and mail service expenses. But it’s all worth it!
The project has it’s highs and lows, but fast forward — I restarted it less than a month ago, and I already received so much of a support that I’m just blown away! Slowly but steadily people started to share the site, like the photos I’m sharing and sending cranes to friends of theirs. We’ve got a crane with 4 picks that ended up in Denmark. Another one flew the whole way to Japan!
People like Peter showed up and offered support one way or another. I was shocked when I received a donation from an awesome girl that I don’t even know, just like that! I’m so grateful and thankful to all of them!
And as it seems there are such a great guys out there that like the idea— I’m trying to expand it as much as possible. I would love to start sending more cranes, especially internationally. Get more people engaged, so it gets well known as an idea, gets more media coverage and attraction. And it has nothing to do with fame — just so that more people can get more crane gifts, and more of them get re-gifted later on and bring out more smiles!
If you think you can help and support it in any way, or even if you just like it — drop me a line — I would love to hear from you!
Visit foldme.in to send a crane of your own or to register to receive one from someone else.
