Lunar New Year Celebration in 2020 at DDVC, Vancouver
Bright and early on the weekend of January 25th, the volunteers at Dharma Drum Vancouver Centre are already busy preparing for the 2-day Chinese New Year Celebration event over the weekend. This is my first time attending the celebration event at the Dharma Drum Vancouver Centre, but also the most memorable and meaningful Chinese New Year I have ever had before. Because this time, I am one of the event volunteers.
Being one of the event volunteers, our team was tasked with making rice balls for lunch for all the volunteers at the event. Our task was to make 66 rice balls in 1.5 hours with only 5 team members. To make our mission even more challenging, none of us had any experience in making rice balls before, at least not with such a large quantity. Expectedly, we encountered our first challenge very soon - the rice balls are all in different sizes! Moments of panic swept over my head: what are we going to do if the volunteers didn’t have enough to eat? What if we couldn’t finish making all the rice balls in time? Are we going to cause major delays to the event?
Together as a team, we soon came to a solution - we can make more rice balls to compensate for the small sizes! We even came up with a strategy that allowed us to finish all of them in time! Right at that moment, I witnessed the power of teamwork and realized that nothing is impossible when everyone comes together.
This Chinese New Year Celebration is a 2-day event that took place on the Chinese New Year's Day. With the variety of activities and the amount of preparation work involved, a significant number of volunteers was needed to make sure everything runs smoothly. Although this is the day when most people spend time with their friends and families, all the volunteers showed up to their scheduled shifts at the event! What surprised me the most is that many of them even brought their family members to the centre to help with the event! Instead of celebrating the holiday themselves, they came together to spread the holiday joy with everyone else!
Throughout the event, I heard nothing but everyone greeting one another with warm words and best wishes. Smiles on children’s faces and laughter all around the centre - happiness is in the air! But none of these is possible without the volunteers. All the volunteers had only one goal, that is, to share the holiday joy and positive energy with others. To me, this is the beauty of Dharma Drum Mountain Meditation Centre.
The volunteers at the Dharma Drum Vancouver Centre are living example of selflessness. Their positivity and selfless nature inspired me to become a better member of the world by doing the same!