A Japanese Town Made Trading Cards of Its Elders — and Volunteering Soared

In the small town of Kawara, in Japan's Fukuoka Prefecture, an unlikely idea has done what countless programs struggle to achieve: it got young people excited about their elderly neighbors. A community center created a deck of collectible trading cards — designed in the spirit of Pokémon — featuring real local residents, mostly middle-aged and older men, each given a special "ability" drawn from their actual life and work. As Good News Network reported in April 2025, the cards became a genuine local sensation.

The idea came from Eri Miyahara, secretary general of the Saidosho Community Center. "We wanted to strengthen the connection between the children and older generations," she explained. The 47-card deck reads like a love letter to the town's quiet experts: an 81-year-old known as the "Soba Master," a retired fire chief, an electrician, and a 67-year-old former prison guard named Mr. Fujii whose card became so sought-after that children began asking him for autographs. "I was honestly shocked when they asked me to sign it," Fujii said. "I never imagined I'd become a trading card."

“A community center created a deck of collectible trading cards — designed in the spirit of Pokémon — featuring real local residents, mostly middle-aged and older men, each given a special "ability" drawn from their actual life and work.”

The cards are cheap and easy to collect — less than a dollar apiece, or about three dollars for a set of six that includes one shiny card. But their real value has been social. Youth participation at the community center doubled, as children sought out the elders to learn their stories, complete their collections and meet the people behind the cards. The elders, in turn, found themselves seen and celebrated by a generation that might otherwise have walked past them.

In a country grappling with an aging population and the loneliness that can come with it, Kawara's experiment is quietly profound. By reframing ordinary elders as collectible heroes, the town transformed respect into something playful and irresistible to kids. The result is a thicker web of intergenerational ties — and a reminder that the people who hold a community's knowledge and history deserve to be treated, in their own neighborhoods, like the local legends they are.