Patriotism and volunteerism comes in many colors. Last Monday the colors were blue and white, the uniform colors of the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation, and the colors of Coldwell Banker George Realty.
Scott Hettrick
A couple weeks ago without me even mentioning anything to her, Arcadia super volunteer Alice Wang asked me if I knew someplace where 50 of her Buddhist Tzu Chi volunteers could camp out for three hours on Monday, June 27, to make phone calls to get people to come out to the Arcadia’s Best Patriotic Foundation parade and street fair Saturday, July 2. She just thought it was important and worth promoting.
I connected her with another local dynamo, Sylvia Ramos of Coldwell Banker George Realty and is a new board member this year at the Arcadia Chamber of Commerce and the Arcadia Association of Realtors.
Alice Wang
The next thing I knew it was Monday and Alice had 48 volunteers sitting at every desk at the two-story Coldwell Banker building on Baldwin and Huntington Drive.
By 8:30 they had made nearly 4,000 calls in an impressively organized fashion.
Tzu Chi will have an entry in the parade. Here’s what I have come to learn about this admirable organization:
Teen volunteers
Tzu Chi means relief and compassion. Serving local communities in 70 countries around the globe, the foundation focuses on 4 major missions: charity, medicine, education, and humanistic culture. Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation was established in 1966 in Hualien by Venerable Dharma Master Cheng Yen. From the first 30 supporters, housewives who saved two cents from their grocery money each day to help the poor, the foundation has grown to nearly 10 million volunteers and supporters in 50 countries.
Tzu Chi Team leaders, including Alice Wang (lf) stand with Sylvia Ramos (c) of Coldwell Banker George Realty
In 1989, the first office in the U.S. was established in Alhambra. There are now more than 80 offices and facilities in the U.S. with over 100,000 volunteers and donors carrying out more than 20 charity community programs in their residential regions as well as providing disaster relief aids across the nation and to South America and Haiti.
Colorfully attired volunteers in veggie costumes at the parade marching alongside a 35-foot vehicle are part of the campaign to promote earth-friendly and health-friendly lifestyle: “Save the Earth, Go Veggie.” From reaching out to people in need, to promoting environmental protection and shaping our future generation with positive moral values, Tzu Chi Foundation hopes to make the world a better place with love and compassion that transcends race, language, and border. That will be the message in the sign language performance and the music they present at the parade.
Slyvia Romos (c) with Tzu Chi members
Among the team leaders of the phone tree Monday were Alice Wang, Gloria Fan, Anne Tsai, Nancy Hsieh, and Lulu Wu.
All of these people are volunteers, and my understanding is that members must earn their way up the ladder because it is an honor to be a member of this group. That may be true, but it was my honor to have so many of them voluntarily spend three hours taking over the offices of Coldwell Banker and making phone calls to spread the word about the Patriotic Festival — that was a refreshing new form of American spirit that gave me a lot of pride.
— by Scott Hettrick