We are happy to announce that we have shipped out our first items for Bento4Japan. We hope the winners of these fine items enjoy them!

There are many other great items up for auction, including the genuine wooden bento box (AKA “magewappa”). This thing is the real deal, and it’s a must-have for any serious bentoholic’s collection. Think of it as the Louis Vuitton of bento boxes. If you’ve got the cash, I highly recommend bidding on it.  Besides, 100% of the final sale price is going to the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund, and there are currently no MissionFish processing costs.

By now we all know what has happened in Japan since March 11th, 2011. Some of us here at BentoLunch.org live in Japan and are directly experiencing the effects. But we thank our lucky stars that we still have our homes and family, unlike  so many people in the northern part of the country. We are also grateful that the bento community has taken an active part in raising money for earthquake/tsunami relief funds. One notable effort is Bento4Japan, through raffles and eBay auctions.

You can also contribute directly to the American Red Cross by going to redcross.org. For people on a US cell phone carrier, you can instantly donate $10 by texting REDCROSS to 90999 and the amount will be applied to your next cell phone bill.

How else can I help?

We’ve created a badge that you can place on your website that links people directly to RedCross.org so they can donate. Just copy the following code and paste it in your HTML editor:

<a href="http://www.redcross.org" target="blank"><img src="http://bentolunch.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/donateredcross.jpg" /></a>

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Have a refrigerator full of fresh ingredients, but don’t know what to do with them? Try out our new search feature and see what other users have done with that ingredient. If you post your own picture, be sure to list the main ingredients that went into your bento so other people can find it.

We’re so excited to see how fast this community is growing that we decided to hold our very first giveaway. We are giving away a brand new bento box and bag to our Twitter followers.  The rules are simple, just follow us on Twitter (@BentoLunch) and retweet this: http://twitter.com/#!/BentoLunch/status/44708506930130944

At the end of the month we will randomly select a winner. We will ship anywhere we can, so anyone can enter. Good luck!

Some users were experiencing issues when creating a description for their bento, causing them disappear when the bento was saved. Another issue was when a thumbnail area was not selected, which would cause the thumbnail to be completely black. These issues has both been fixed. If you see any other bugs, please be sure to let us know on our contact page.

We would also like to welcome our newest members — keep the great bentos and feedback coming!