[Vision2020] Attention Area Churches: Tsunami Relief

[Art Deco]

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

Tuesday, January 11, 2005 · Last updated 12:56 p.m. PT

Canadian Buddhists sell temple to raise $450,000 in aid

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BURNABY, British Columbia -- A small Buddhist congregation in this Vancouver suburb has sold one of its temples to raise money for tsunami victims.

Abbot Thick Nguyen gave $450,000 - all the proceeds from sale of the Vietnamese Buddhist Congregation's temple in this Fraser Valley town - to the Canadian Red Cross on Monday.

The small group still has its main temple here.

"This is phenomenal. It's one of the largest, if not the largest, donations the Canadian Red Cross has received from anyone in British Columbia," Red Cross spokeswoman Carmen MacKenzie said.

A Vancouver-area Tibetan Buddhist group agreed to purchase the temple after media reports about the planned sale.

The subsidiary temple had been on the market for a year to raise funds for a larger replacement. Thick Nguyen told the congregation on New Year's Day he had decided to accept the highest offer and donate the proceeds to tsunami relief.

The contribution is partly to thank the people of the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia for their help in the 1970s, the abbot said through an interpreter. Three decades ago, he said, these nations accepted him and others fleeing the Communist government in Vietnam.

"When the abbot made his announcement, a lot of people dropped their jaws, but after a day went by, everybody began supporting him wholeheartedly," Dr. Vi Liet Nguyen, a temple board member, told the Vancouver Sun.

"The idea of giving $500,000 to help survivors of the tsunami is not unprecedented, but the idea of giving up a whole temple to help victims touched a lot of people around the world," said Phien Nguyen, a director of the Vietnamese Buddhist group.
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