Japan Kominka Rescue The 2027 Calendar

Japan Kominka Rescue · Donate

Keep a house standing.

Japan Kominka Rescue saves abandoned farmhouses — kominka — in Niigata from neglect, deterioration and destruction, and turns them back into places a village can use. A gift of any size goes directly to that work.

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Japan Kominka Rescue is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Gifts are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law; your emailed receipt is your record.

Milt Yamada standing in front of the abandoned kominka in Shirone, Niigata
Shirone, Niigata. The first house, as the project found it.

Where it goes

What a gift supports

The house is the method. The community is the point. Gifts support the mission as a whole across the areas below; no portion is assigned to a single outcome.

01

Traditional building restoration

Saving abandoned farmhouses from neglect, deterioration and demolition, and repairing them properly — frame, roof, walls and floors.

02

Community spaces

Turning repaired buildings back into rooms a village can use: somewhere to gather, meet, eat and work.

03

Rural revitalization

Supporting a working village in Niigata rather than a preserved façade — the wider aim behind every house the project takes on.

04

Local food and agriculture

Connecting the buildings to the growers around them, so a restored house joins the local economy instead of sitting beside it.

05

Cultural preservation

Recording and passing on how these houses were built, and the knowledge held by the people who kept them standing.

06

Community programming

Planned use of the buildings, including a community centre and a regular dinner for children in the village.

Rescuing kominka revitalizes communities. It breathes new life into once-thriving towns of farmers and merchants, honours the generations who kept the legacy alive, and gives the last of them the respect and dignity they deserve.

Japan Kominka Rescue — our vision
Prefer something for the wall?

The 2027 calendar — thirteen months of Japan — is $25, and every copy supports the same work.

See the calendar