2026 JACL Chicago Kansha Project Culmination & Community Potluck

Join us to celebrate the 15th year of the Kansha Project with the Kansha Alumni Leadership Board (ALB) and the 2026 participants!
About this Event

Join us to celebrate the 15th year of the Kansha Project with the Kansha Alumni Leadership Board (ALB) and the 2026 participants! For the first time at Culmination, we'll also be hosting a community project. Bring your favorite dish to share (any amount is great!) and you can fill out this form to add what you're bringining. We can't wait to see you! Add your dish here.

Over the past fifteen years, the Kansha Project has grown from a mere idea into a flagship program of JACL Chicago, sending over 100 alumni across ten cohorts to Little Tokyo, Los Angeles and Manzanar National Historic Site.

The Kansha Project is a transformative program that provides young Japanese Americans the opportunity to learn about our community’s history, develop unique insights about our community’s legacy, and allows participants to explore their identity with other Japanese American young adults. In addition, the Kansha Project provides an entry point for community engagement and a pathway for youth leadership that is vital to the future of the Japanese American community at large.

This year, the trip will take place from June 4-7 and celebrate the 2026 Kansha Project cohort with Culmination in Chicago on Saturday, June 27.

• Emi Boonin
• Taylor Williams
• Tibe Rwakatare
• Evan Potijinda
• Maya Ostermann
• Raquelle Riffle
• Miye Slowik
• Grace Bonjour
• Adriana Serrano Matsumoto

We invite you to join us at Culmination to celebrate this year’s Kansha Project with the Kansha Alumni Leadership Board (ALB) and the 2026 program participants! Participants will share reflections of their experience of their trip to Little Tokyo, LA and Manzanar Historic Site and present their unique projects summarizing their experience to the community.

We hope you'll join us for this celebration of community, youth leadership, and legacy.

While this is a free event, we kindly ask you consider making a donation to help us continue this community run program for future generations.

Questions? Contact JACL Program Director, Rebecca Ozaki at [email protected].

Learn more at https://jaclchicago.org/programs/kansha-project/

Please also SAVE THE DATE for our Kansha 15th Anniversary Celebration on Sunday, October 18th at Kamehachi Northbrook!