Farewell to the Franciscan Sisters

After serving Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside for the past 85 years, The Franciscan Sisters of the Atonement are leaving Vancouver and moving to their Edmonton convent. In the early twenties and thirties, the Sisters and the Friars served the Japanese community on Powell Street. During the challenging times that followed the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the subsequent measures taken by the government against Japanese Canadians  living on the west coast they  played an important part in the evacuation of 1,700 Japanese Canadians  from to a little ghost town called Greenwood in the interior of BC.

A committee has been formed to help acknowledge and thank the Franciscan Sisters of the Atonement for a lifetime of kindness and dedication to humanity. At this year’s Powell Street Festival, the JCCA Human Rights committee will have a full historical display of photos going back to the 1920s. There will be many old photos on display  from the Greenwood Museum. You may recognize many people (even yourselves!) in the photos. We even have a photo of the well-known actor Robert Ito when he was about five years old in a little altar boy’s costume.

There will also be a farewell get-together on August 13 at Tonari Gumi, 511 East Broadway, from about 2pm.  We have asked the Sisters and they have told us that they would love to come and enjoy a very cordial party with everyone.  We will have chit-chats, a few speeches and a lot of great entertainment. Also, if some of you can bring your favourite pot-luck dishes we would appreciate it so much. If not, donations would be gratefully accepted.
For further information, please contact  Lurana (Kikko) Tasaka  at 604.736.3182  or e-mail kikko.lurana@gmail.com. We would like to have an idea of how many people can attend.

It would be wonderful to show our gratitude to the Sisters and Friars of the Atonement for all of the good that they have done and are still doing in the Downtown Eastside.