Volunteers create 14,000 origami cranes for cancer center installation

It took a community, but now it’s done and ready to provide comfort and inspiration to patients and their families.
Volunteers from various organizations as well as staff from Long Beach Memorial Hospital pitched in to fold 14,000 paper cranes to form a large art installation in the shape of a cancer-awareness ribbon for the lobby of the MemorialCare Todd Cancer Institute.
The “Cranes of Hope” installation, which replaces a similar but smaller one created four years ago, was unveiled and presented to the public Tuesday.
In a phone interview that morning, Cathy Kopy, executive director of the cancer institute, explained that the original origami installation was very popular with those who visited the facility, but over time it needed to be replaced because of fading from sun exposure and difficulty in cleaning all the tiny paper birds.
“They’re hung in our main lobby, which is surrounded by glass,” Kopy said. “So, over the past four years, the cranes’ paper has faded, and they’re impossible to clean, so we just needed to brighten them up by replacing them. Being paper, the sunlight has really bleached them.”
Kopy explained that many of the volunteers who folded cranes for the first installation once again stepped up to create more origami for the replacement piece.
Beatrice Jimenez, a marketing associate for MemorialCare Health System who helped spearhead the project, said it is difficult to determine the exact number of those who contributed to folding the thousands of cranes.
“All I know is they came in so fast this time it was hard to keep up with the count,” Jimenez said. “I think, from the last time, people sort of knew what this project was, so when we put that call to action out there, people really jumped on it, and we did have some churches and some community groups [participate]. A lot of our volunteers here at the hospital just went full force into this project— our patients as well.”
Jimenez added that, because so many people were familiar with the original incarnation of the piece, it was easy this time to find volunteers to work on it. She explained that various contributors would work on the folding off-site and then deliver the cranes to the hospital.
The folding took about six months, and then the planning and installation itself took about another six months, Jimenez said.
“I think a lot of people actually find the cranes kind of therapeutic,” she said. “It didn’t really take much [effort to find volunteers] this time around. The community really just got behind it almost immediately.”
Kopy explained that the original project itself was the brainchild of MemorialCare’s marketing staff.

“As we were developing and building our cancer center, our marketing team wanted to find a way to engage the greater Long Beach community in preparing for the opening of our center, so they thought of this idea of the origami cranes,” Kopy said. “Of course, there’s the Japanese legend that whoever folds a thousand cranes will be granted a wish. And so, when the call to action originally went out, it was ‘help us fold a thousand cranes to have our wish of a comprehensive cancer center in the community of Long Beach come to fruition.'”
Kopy said that first request for assistance resulted in the creation of 10,000 cranes.
“It was a way to engage the community and to start anticipating the arrival of this outpatient cancer center,” Kopy said.
Kopy noted that there is a significant difference in how the new installation looks.
“It looks very different because the first installation was just strands, but in this installation the colors are so bright and vibrant, and the cranes are strung much tighter together,” she said. “So, it has a completely different look and feel to it.”

During her interview Tuesday, Kopy expressed gratitude to all the community members who helped make the art piece a success, because it has become quite meaningful for patients.
“The cranes have taken on a really significant meaning for the patients that come here for treatment,” Kopy said. “The patients feel very attached to those cranes. I think it’s because they’re hopeful. When the door opens, they flutter, they feel very alive and they’re taking flight. Somehow that is just really inspiring and comforting for our patients.”
She added that some of the cranes that are placed into vases scattered around the center seem to disappear because patients take them home. And that’s perfectly fine with the center’s staff.
“It’s really interesting because patients will pick up that crane and take it because somehow it’s symbolic of their journey,” Kopy said. “And we’ve just decided we’re going to keep filling up those vases, and if patients feel like they need a crane, we’re going to offer them a crane to take home. It’s a very interesting relationship that our patients have with those cranes.”