Descriptions of our past activities

Note that our activities are not limited to these listed:

Hotmeal Serve

Once every semester we spend an afternoon preparing delicious vegetarian dinner for the homeless in an Oakland soup kitchen. The objective of this event fulfills one of TC's four missions: Charity. We hope through Hotmeal Serve, the participants would learn to do charity work and serve the community whenever possible. Over the years, Hotmeal Server became the most popular event that Berkeley TC offers. Most participants find it enjoyable because it gives them the opportunity to learn many new recipes, to interact with the other volunteers, and do services at the same time.

Convalescent Home Visits

We spend an afternoon with the residents of a Berkeley convalescent home. The goal is to find the peace and happiness within and share it with others. Some of our activities include playing games, singing, telling stories, and performing sign language dances.

Special Case Visits

This is similar to the convalescent home visit but on a smaller scale. Up to four member form a group led by an experienced Tzu Chi case specialist. The group visits individual people who are in need of attention. These individuals include cancer patients, neglected elders living alone, and people suffering from traumatic illnesses. Each group visits about three individuals per outing. Afterwards, the groups meet and discuss their comments and share their experience. Participants agree that this is an intense learning experience.

Weekly Math Tutoring

Also coordinated with the Adult TC Group, a weekly math-tutoring pilot program was setup in the Alameda county (30 minutes driving from Berkeley). Tutors and high school tutees meet up for 2 hours every Saturday for various levels of math, ranging from Algebra I to Calculus. Main participants of this event are Berkeley students, inside and outside of Tzu Chi, and the weekly commitment is made throughout the semester (total of 13 weeks). This program runs amazingly successfully, led by Dan S/B and our very own TC Berkeley executive, Alice Chen. There are 21 volunteered tutors in this program and most of them are not even TC members. The surveys from the high school tutees, obtained on 11/16/02, indicated that it has been a helpful and effective program, and they are interested in returning. The success of this program in servicing students in need who are from various ethnic backgrounds actually get published on Chinese Daily. The survey results are passed onto the high school teachers to promote this program in the future.

Street Clean-up

One of the missions of Tzu Chi is to protect and beautify our environment. One of the ways we do that is by going out on the streets of Oakland and San Francisco to clean the streets, get to know the people in our community, and make friends.

Beach Clean-up

A fun and rewarding event we started in September, 1998, and hopefully will continue as a regular semester event. Besides cleaning up the China Beach in San Francisco, we also had a sand castle-building contest, a picnic, and a discussion.

Sharing Night

This is a fun event where members gather together to share their thoughts and experiences relating to community service, Buddhism, and how all of this affects their life. Traditionally, to create a friendly and relaxing environment, food is provided and ice breaker games are played. Usually, there are also invited speakers from the San Francisco and San Jose Tzu Chi Branches.

Volunteer at TC Chinese School

Interacting and playing games with children of various age, and be their Big Brother/Sister for one day.