Today, the stars are listening.

Tonight in Japan, people celebrate Tanabata, the Star Festival. Legend says two stars, Vega and Altair, are separated by the Milky Way and allowed to meet only once a year. People write wishes on colorful paper strips called tanzaku and hang them on bamboo branches, hoping the stars will grant them.

Japan carries another wish tradition, too: folding a thousand paper cranes, senbazuru — a symbol of peace made famous by Sadako Sasaki, a girl from Hiroshima who folded cranes wishing for peace after World War II. That same wish lives on today. We're borrowing both traditions this year, for one message: a peaceful sky for every child.

This isn't about any one country or conflict. The number of children who need urgent help has kept rising for years, not falling — and the simplest thing any of us can do is keep remembering, keep paying attention, and never look away from what feeds a conflict, wherever it happens.

Picture a classroom of 30 kids. About 5 of them are growing up in or near war right now.