On April 19th, 2009, the writing contest New “A Brief Message from the Heart”, the 6 th such event, was held in the Maruoka gym in Sakai City, Fukui Prefecture.

A total of 61,283 entries were received, of which 165 submissions came from contestants in other countries worldwide, for this year’s contest with the theme of “Dream”. Of these entries, 154 received a prize. The award breakdown is as follows: Five works were selected for the Grand Prize, 10 works won the Award for Excellence, 20 for the Sumitomo Award, 10 for the Award for Message, five for the Maruoka Junior Chamber Award, three for the “A Message from the Heart” special prize, 100 entries were given an Honorable Mention and one for the “One millionth entry commemorative special prize” which was commemorated for reaching one million entries from the first “A Message from the Heart” writing contest in 1993.

The reception hall was decorated with a large number of balloons and flowers that stirred the image of this years contest theme“Dream”.

The works which received prizes were read aloud by students from a local broadcasting club from Maruoka High School.

At the reception after the ceremony, Echizen-Soba which is the specialty food product for the area was served to everyone who attended the event and people such as the prize winners who came from around the country, families, the judges and parties greatly enjoyed it as the banquet hall was wrapped by the chatter and excitement.

Scene of award ceremony