Sukiyaki Dinner Next Up For Busy Community Leader

It takes hundreds of volunteers to decorate the Wapato Buddhist Hall and prepare the meal for the annual Sukiyaki Dinner. Within three and a half hours, more than 1,500 people will visit the hall. (Courtesy Lon Inaba).

WAPATO — It’s been said many times: If you want to get something done, call on a person who’s busy.

Around here, one of those people is Lon Inaba who, with brothers and other family members, operates a family farm of 1,200 acres. Its primary product is vegetables.

The family has grown their father’s original 200 acres to the current 1,200. Operations Manager Inaba is busy with the farm, but that hasn’t kept him from taking a place in his community. He is secretary of the Central Washington State Fair’s board of directors. He is president of the Friends of Harrah organization. He sits on other boards.

Next up on Inaba’s schedule is the 58th annual Sukiyaki dinner at the Wapato Buddhist Temple, from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 3. At 63, Inaba’s been to nearly all of them.

“I missed the dinner when I was going to college,” he said.

Inaba, president of the Buddhist Hall, has not only attended. He has also volunteered to work alongside more than 200 other volunteers.

“I wash dishes, I clear tables,” he said.

The volunteers are vital, Inaba said. In the three and a half hours slated on March 3, more than 1,500 diners will pass through the hall’s doors. The largest turnout of 2,000 came to the 50th anniversary dinner.

“We really appreciate the volunteers,” Inaba said. “We have a lot of high school students who help with dinner. We prepare the vegetables the day before. It’s kind of like the fair. It’s a big deal.”

The $17 dinner reaches out to everyone. There is a vegetarian plate and take-out. Tickets are available at the door.

The dinner is basically Teriyaki beef stir fry, Inaba said. The dish includes onions, bamboo shoots, yam noodles and celery. It includes a special Sukiyaki sauce.

“It’s a secret sauce that probably came from the best cook in the Japanese community 60 years ago,” Inaba said.

The Sukiyaki dinner is not important only as a cultural event.  Proceeds go toward maintenance of the Hall and support of the Hall’s projects.

As this photo reveals, a lot of work remains for the completion of the Japanese Pioneer Memorial Garden at Tahoma Cemetery in Yakima. Still to come are field stones collected from sites of Japanese pioneer farms, boulders, trees, shrubs and memorial tiles. (Courtesy Lon Inaba).

The most important current project is a Japanese Memorial Garden at Tahoma Cemetery in Yakima, already under construction. The Wapato Buddhist Hall is contributing to the $100,000 goal to fund the project.

The Japanese Garden fills a request by the City of Yakima to the Yakima Valley Japanese Bochi (cemetery) Association to help beautify the newest section of Tahoma. The Garden is located near a block of 200 graves purchased by the Japanese Bochi Committee and reserved for members and friends of the Japanese Community.

According to Inaba, the Japanese community has welcomed this project as an opportunity to remember the early Japanese pioneers who settled in the Yakima Valley and their contributions in the early 1900s.

The Japanese Bochi Committee has pre-purchased blocks of graves several times for members of the Japanese community at the Tahoma cemetery, Inaba said. He has no idea how large the Valley’s Japanese community is.

“It depends on who you count as Japanese,” he said. “My wife is of Swedish ancestry. Our son was born Korean.”

Inaba noted that volunteers collect peonies and decorate approximately 400 grave sites at two sections of Tahoma cemetery on Memorial Day.

This is a model of the Japanese Pioneer Memorial Garden at Tahoma Cemetery. The funding goal of $100,000 is for building the memorial and establishing a perpetual maintenance fund. (Courtesy Lon Inaba).

The garden will be decorated with field stones collected from various Japanese farm sites of the pioneer families, Inaba said. He said a lot remains to be done, and it will require lots of money and volunteers.

If you would like to help in this project, the Japanese Bochi Committee is seeking sponsors for memorial tiles, which will be placed at the memorial.