The Peace Resource Center at Wilmington College will unveil a new permanent exhibit featuring “Stories of Hope” during an open house Aug. 6 at 7:30 p.m.

The event also will include a ribbon-cutting ceremony, speakers and a reception. The PRC is located at 51 College St.

The exhibit highlights four stories designed to inform and inspire, as well as illustrate how individuals can have an impact and, in some cases, change the world.

The wall-mounted storyboards highlight Barbara Reynolds, founder of the Peace Resource Center; Sadako Sasaki, a young girl who died of leukemia induced by radiation from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima; the Hiroshima Maidens, a group of young Japanese women who came to the United States for reconstructive surgery following the bombings; and Dr. Takashi Nagai, the first published writer of the A-Bomb experience.

Nagai has been described as “a symbol of mercy and compassion” for his insightful writings, while the Hiroshima Maidens represent the remarkable story how, disfigured by the atomic bombing, they discovered forgiveness and renewed hope as a result of their visit to the U.S.

Sadako’s story is among the best known.

A child dying of cancer, she began folding origami “peace cranes” in accordance with the Japanese folklore that a wish would be granted upon the folding 1,000 paper cranes. She completed hundreds before succumbing to the disease, but her courage inspired her classmates to complete her goal. A statue of Sadako holding a golden crane is a focal point of the Children’s Peace Monument in Japan.

Moved by her convictions, Reynolds was resolved the world must learn the message of the Hibakusha (A-bomb survivors) — no more Hiroshimas or a Nagasakis anywhere in the world. Three times she traveled the globe with survivors to share their stories.

Also, she and her family twice sailed into restricted zones patrolled by the United States and Soviet Union’s militaries, respectively, to protest those nations’ nuclear testing.

Reynolds also believed friendship destroys the stereotypes on which wars are based, and that a center where people from different countries could meet and learn about each other was one way to contribute to peace.

Putting this belief into action, in 1965 she founded the World Friendship Center in Hiroshima in a effort to build “bridges of friendship and to encourage people of every nation to become peacemakers.”

Upon Reynolds being named an honorary citizen of Hiroshima, the city’s mayor, Takashi Matsubara, said, “She (Reynolds) taught us to see that peace is something we can keep in our hearts, and spread from man to man, not only in Japan but all over the world.”

In August 1975 — the 30th anniversary of the atomic bombings — Reynolds and Wilmington College established the Peace Resource Center on campus featuring the Hiroshima/Nagasaki Memorial Collection.

Reynolds had sought a Quaker college that would preserve her atomic bomb research collection and make it available to the public. The collection features photographs, scrapbooks, films, slide shows, correspondence and first hand accounts of the A-bomb experience.

In addition, the Atomic Bomb Museum in Hiroshima donated more than 5,000 resources, including English and Japanese books, making the Peace Resource Center the largest depository of materials on the atomic bombings outside of Japan.

Reynolds retired from the Center in 1978 and died in 1990.

Today the Peace Resource Center continues its work with the Reynolds’ legacy of hope and peace. The center has operated the Institute for Problem Solving since 1998.

Its outreach programs feature training in positive discipline and mediation, as well as ProjectTRUST, an initiative that seeks to break down barriers between middle school students. It also hosts other workshops designed for resolving problems peacefully and creating a positive classroom environment.

The center offers a circulating library in English featuring some 2,000 titles and includes books on nonviolence, conflict resolution, the atomic bombings, war/peace issues and stories of individual peacemakers, as well as Quaker writings and a large number of peace education curriculum pieces for children and youth.

Books can also be purchased through the center’s bookstore or online at www2.wilmington.edu/prc/bookstore.cfm.

An audio-visual library complementing the Hiroshima/Nagasaki Collection is now located in WC’s Watson Library and provides informational films and videos.