Skip to main content

The Rainbow World Fund presents the14th Annual WORLD TREE OF HOPE

Media contact: David Perry & Associates, Inc. (415) 676-7007 / news@davidperry.com 

MEDIA ADVISORY / REQUEST FOR COVERAGE: through December  31: 

WHO: The Rainbow World Fund

WHAT: Presents the14th Annual WORLD TREE OF HOPE: A 23-foot holiday tree decorated with thousands of white origami cranes, each containing written wishes of hope and peace from children and individuals from around the world. The WORLD TREE OF HOPE is the largest annual origami decorated holiday tree in the world.

WHEN: Through December 31

WHERE: Grace Cathedral / 1100 California Street / San Francisco

WEB: http://www.worldtreeofhope.org 

HOW MUCH: FREE and open to the public

HOW TO WISH: Wishes can be submitted online for free at http://www.worldtreeofhope.org/make-a-wish/Wishes are printed, folded into origami cranes and placed on the tree

WHY: Wishes are powerful: they are the seeds of action. For the 14th year, those seeds bear fruit. At 23 feet tall with up to 17,000 delicately folded origami paper cranes, the Rainbow World Fund World Tree of Hope is a visible symbol of a world hungry for connection and peace. The process is simple: Wishes are sent in from around the world, printed, and folded into paper origami cranes by a diverse team of more than 300 Rainbow World Fund volunteers including members ofSan Francisco’s LGBTQ and Japanese American communities, survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, local children, and life-sentence prisoners from San Quentin. The origami “crane wishes” are then placed on the tree.  The process takes over 2500 hours. Wishes will be added to the tree throughout December and are accepted year round. Founded by Jeff Cotter in 2000, the 501(c)3 nonprofit Rainbow World Fund is the world’s first and only all-volunteer, LGBTQ-based humanitarian aid organization. The Fund works to help people affected by natural disasters, hunger, poverty, disease, oppression and war by raising awareness in, and funds from, the LGBTQ community to support LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ people locally and around the world. The Tree was inspired by the story of Sadako Sasaki, the Japanese child whose journey and death several years after the bomb was dropped in Hiroshima transformed the origami crane into a symbol of world peace. The Rainbow World Fund’s World Tree of Hope is the largest annual origami decorated holiday tree in the world.