Mahalo to the Hawaii Betsuin Buddhist Women’s Association and its members for their continuing social concerns efforts! We are pleased to share these recent updates and photos.

Family Promise Ohana Dinners

On July 21, nine Hawaii Betsuin BWA members provided Ohana Dinners for nine families in the Family Promise Emergency Shelter in Honolulu.  Each BWA volunteer brought a main dish and a side dish for a designated family to the Betsuin parking lot at the meeting time of 4:15 p.m.  The bags and boxes of food, each labeled with the floor and room number of a family, were loaded into two cars.  Family Promise staff at the site met the two BWA drivers at 5:00 p.m. to help transfer the food to the carts used to transport the dinners to the families.  Hawaii Betsuin BWA members participate in the Ohana Dinners program once a quarter.

Delivery ready to go!

Making the delivery.

School Supply Drive

Hawaii Betsuin’s BWA initiated a School Supply Drive on July 15 for students in Family Promise of Hawaii programs.  Warmest thanks to BWA members and temple board members for generously supporting this drive.  Many wish list items were donated:  beautiful backpacks, crayons, folder paper, glue and glue sticks, 3-ring binders, “marble” composition notebooks, pencils, pencil cases, and roller ball pens.  Folks also contributed paper towels, facial tissue, and liquid hand soap or made a monetary donation to Family Promise for the purchase of school supplies.  BWA volunteers delivered the school supplies to Family Promise on July 27, 28, and 29, happy to fulfill the wishes of the school-age children sheltered by Family Promise.

School supplies collected…

…and delivered!

Paper goods made a practical supplement to the school supplies.

(You may click the photos for a larger image.)