Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation

On June 1, volunteers in Tokyo, Japan, arrived at Yoyogi Park to deliver almost 300 hot meals to street people. As in the past, many street people had already lined up even before the distribution began.
 
Before the event kicked off, one volunteer talked to the homeless about the origin of Tzu Chi’s bamboo coin banks. She told them the foundation started its charitable activities over 40 years before with 30 housewives saving 50 cents of their grocery money in bamboo banks every day. She hoped that this story could inspire the goodness in the homeless and help them realize that even though they were being helped, they were still capable of helping other people, even if in only a small way. After hearing her story, many of the street people took out coins from their pockets and dropped them into the bamboo banks the volunteers had brought to the venue. As Master Cheng Yen has said, making donations isn’t the privilege of rich people; anyone with love can do it. In the midst of the global recession, each one of us should reduce our desires for material goods, but at the same time we should expand our love.
 
One volunteer said that this was their fourth monthly distribution since March this year. After each distribution, volunteers would hold a meeting at the local branch office and discuss how to provide even better services to the homeless. They plan to hold more frequent food distributions in the future to help more people.