Let Kindness Heal the Wounds, the Tzu Chi Way

The scourge of widespread riverine flooding has hit the US Midwest region again. The weeks of torrential rains have tested the mighty Mississippi River and its many tributaries at its upstream end beyond their conveyance capacity (a jargon used in hydraulic engineering to denote the ability of a river cross-section to pass the upstream flow downstream without spilling its banks) such that the surging flood flow either erodes the river banks leading to house collapse or worse, breaches the levees resulting in extensive inundation of the low-lying built up areas abutting its banks. Thus far, flooding has affected Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin, causing untold devastation in terms of fatality and property damage.

As an immediate response, physical aid has been rushed to the affected areas to help the flood victims. At the same time, many relief organizations have initiated donation drives to provide financial aid to the flood victims to tide over these difficult times. Tzu Chi Foundation, a Buddhist Compassionate Relief headquartered in Taiwan, is one such entity. Coordinated by its US Office, many area branches have marshaled their local members and volunteers to initiate donation collection at locations frequented by people.

The Tzu Chi Relief Poster but with new background images from here.

In Florida, the efforts were led by the Orlando office, and the donation drive in Tampa was entrusted to Yu Huei who polled the Tampa volunteers pool and prepared a roster to man the donation drive scheduled on July 6, 2008 at Sam's Club located on Dale Mabry Highway. We gladly accepted the opportunity to do our bit and were assigned the shift from 12.30 pm – 2.30pm.

Armed with boxes of fried rice prepared by Wify as lunch for the volunteers (Sister Connie also prepared fried meehoon for the same purpose, which I partook of), we arrived dutifully at the scheduled time. After donning the Tzu Chi's trademark vests, we positioned ourselves at the exit end of Sam's Club and started appealing to the loving kindness of patrons. While not exactly old hands in this endeavor, we have had participated in several of these efforts previously (see here) and soon eased into our assigned role without much inhibition.

As I have said before, greeting strangers and appealing for donations for whatever reason in public is a humbling experience. As long as we believe in the good cause we are doing and put ourselves as just one human trying to help another, driven by compassion that is inborn in each of us, then we would not be bothered by the perceived humiliation of being ignored, which from our limited experience is rare indeed. Most people who for one reason or another did not donate on the spot would invariably decline politely and apologetically. We then offer them the alternative of making the donation online by passing out pamphlets. I reproduce here the website for those who wish to do likewise: Tzu Chi Foundation, USA.

Thanks to the Management of Sam's Club, all the patrons that came our way, the Tampa volunteers (listed in the images below), and the Tzu Chi Volunteers Corps from Orlando for making all these possible.

From left to right: Brian Low, Connie Low, Yu Huei (Tampa area organizer), Wify and Yours Truly, standing at the exit of Sam's Club. Not in the pic are Julie Huang and Celia Fan who were in the morning shift and Viky who stood at the entrance to hand out the pamphlets. Thanks to all for all your kind efforts.

Yu Huei (second from left) and Wify posing with the Tzu Chi Volunteers Corps from Orlando dressed in blue shirt and white pants, the assigned dress code for the Corps.