Habitat for Humanity community service project, North Carolina, US, June 2019. Photo courtesy of Kadampa Center.

Kadampa Center, an FPMT center in Raleigh, North Carolina, US, shares about their community service program, Compassion in Action. Community Service and Interfaith Activities are two of FPMT’s Five Pillars of Service. Elise Strevel, the center’s outreach coordinator, a member of the center’s management team, initiates and coordinates most Compassion in Action activities. Elise shares how any FPMT center, regardless of its size, can practice Compassion in Action as an intentional outgrowth of the teachings.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama wrote in his book The Art of Happiness, “I believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring immediate and long-term happiness to our lives.” Lama Zopa Rinpoche demonstrates this endless capacity for benefiting others through the many charitable projects he has initiated, supported, and developed.

The Kadampa Center tries to follow this excellent advice by participating in various forms of community service projects, also known at our center as Compassion in Action.

Most of the community service projects Kadampa Center engages in connects us to groups that already exist in the community. We partner with established organizations that are inclusive and welcoming to all such as food pantries and Habitat for Humanity. Even if organizations are nominally established by another faith organization, they desire and welcome coexistence, cooperation, and support from all. In the past year we participated in interfaith prayer services, a Food Bank of North Carolina food drive, a Sathya Sai Baba community prescription eyeglasses drive, a Meals on Wheels project, a local government’s Adopt-a-Stream program, a Rise Against Hunger project, and three Habitat for Humanity projects.

The Kadampa Center community donated 504 pounds (228 kg) of food to the Food Bank of North Carolina, North Carolina, US, July 2019. Photo courtesy of Kadampa Center.

In this way we are adding to or multiplying positive energy, rather than depleting energy by creating our own start-up project. We select community service projects managed by other organizations that accommodate the various ages, abilities, and interests of our members. Some interfaith group community service projects are chosen for their additional value of being in harmony with His Holiness’s commitment to promote religious harmony.

An affiliation between Kadampa Center and our local interfaith alliance facilitates many of these connections. I have had the blessing of being on the Triangle Interfaith Alliance board of directors on and off for over ten years. Chris Baranski, our center’s co-media coordinator, has also just joined the board.

Habitat for Humanity children’s community service project, North Carolina, US, April 2019. Photo courtesy of Kadampa Center.

We use every possible means to get the word out to the Kadampa Center community about our Compassion in Action activities, just as we do for any spiritual or social activity at the center: we put a notice on our website; in our email newsletter; and post it on our center’s Facebook page. Most Sundays, the outreach coordinator makes an announcement at the end of the teachings.

At least twice a year, adults and children at Kadampa Center are reminded to think of the needs of others as they shop for themselves. For the food, clothing, and household supplies collections we participate in, all the Kadampa Center outreach coordinator has to do is identify a need, promote it, provide a collection barrel at Kadampa Center, and arrange delivery to the Food Bank of North Carolina. In the past year we collected hundreds of pounds of food to benefit so many in food crisis.

Kadampa Center participates in Interfaith Prayer Services held three times each year in rotating places of worship or prayer. We invite people of all ages from various faith streams to participate by offering a prayer or anecdote on a theme. These services underscore our common ethics of love and compassion.

Each year, Kadampa Center does a Prescription Eyeglasses Collection. Members donate dozens of outdated prescription eyeglasses to be put to good use to give the gift of vision at a Free Healthcare Day organized by the local Sathya Sai Baba community.

Adopt a Stream community service project, North Carolina, US, March 2019. Photo courtesy of Kadampa Center.

For the “Love Notes” Project, brief handwritten notes of love and encouragement were delivered to Meals On Wheels, and then distributed to Meals on Wheels clients along with their meal trays. We organized the materials—sets of blank note cards and sample notes to write—set up a collection site at Kadampa Center, then made delivery of the notes to the local Meals on Wheels office about once a month. Our members of all ages were able to participate in this project. Some might have only had time to write a few cards, others did many. Almost 2,000 notes were delivered in a year.

One of our center’s Family Program leaders initiated an affiliation with our city’s Adopt-a-Stream Project. Twice a year, children and adults work together to clean up a lake shoreline for the benefit of many forms of sentient beings. At each cleanup we collected between thirteen and fifteen bags of trash on less than a one-mile stretch of the water’s edge. 

We partnered with the international nonprofit Rise Against Hunger which sends packed meals to places all over the world during food crises. Our members were part of a group of fifty people who participated in a food packing event, packing 10,000 meals that were sent to victims of natural disasters in Africa and Cambodia.

We have found that Habitat for Humanity more often has opportunities for adults of all ages and skill levels, but sometimes has special opportunities for clergy/leaders, and children.

Geshe Palden Sangpo at a Habitat for Humanity community service project, North Carolina, US, April 2019. Photo courtesy of Kadampa Center.

In June, adults from our center were a part of a group of twenty-nine Habitat for Humanity volunteers who came together for a single day to clean, paint, and install wood trim and cabinets. The volunteer group represented Buddhist, Bahá’í, Muslim, Mormon, Lutheran, and other Christian and non-denominational faith streams from North Carolina, Utah, Japan, and Thailand.

Each year, Habitat for Humanity organizes a Clergy/Leadership Workday. In April, Geshe Palden Sangpo, one of our FPMT resident geshes set an example of Compassion in Action by working along with rabbis, ministers, imams and other church leaders to install windows and walls to benefit a new homeowner.

In April, Habitat for Humanity organized a Baffle Project for Children. The Kadampa Center Family Program involved our children in the project. They joined others from many faiths and cultures to paint messages of love and blessings on baffles, a construction material that encourages air flow in attics. The baffles were then installed in Habitat for Humanity homes.

We have learned that even a team of two people who are acting intentionally as an outgrowth of the teachings has immeasurable merit. We can have two to fifteen people participate in a community service project. The number isn’t as important as the intention in action.

Each time our center provides an opportunity for Compassion in Action, many members that were unable to physically participate tell us that hearing of others’ participation inspires, uplifts, and motivates them to set intentions in their lives to think of others. We are delighted that community service projects directly and indirectly benefit many members and sentient beings.

For more information about Kadampa Center, visit their website:
https://kadampa-center.org/

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