Taylor Anderson was the first confirmed American casualty of the March 11, 2011 tsunami in Japan. As part of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme, Taylor spent two and a half years teaching English to kindergarten, lower school and junior high school students in the coastal city of Ishinomaki of Miyagi Prefecture. She was last seen helping and assuring her students after the disaster.

The main purposes of the Fund are to help students, schools and families in the Ishinomaki area recover from the earthquake and tsunami as Taylor’s family expects Taylor would have wanted, and to pursue Taylor’s dream of being a bridge between the U.S. and Japan.