Happy New Year everyone!  Akimashite omedetou gozaimasu.  

I’m baaaaaaack!  Surprise, I’m back for another shot at this President thing.   And you thought that I would just go away quietly into the night…. No such luck!  

First of all, I would like to thank Larry Handa for taking over the presidency for the past two years.  Larry did a great job of not only running the Board of Directors, but of assisting in getting the Betsuin more involved in the Japantown community.  He has continued to be on the Nikkei Matsuri board, but also got us involved with the Curry Cookoff and Japantown-wide Keiro Kai.  Both the Cookoff and Keiro Kai were big hits in the community.  

It’s been encouraging to see increased participation in various activities around the Betsuin over the past year.  Rinban’s suggestion for holding the “One Sangha” events have been a big hit as it brings many of us together to share a meal and conversation.  Many of the annual fundraisers also returned with large turnouts such as the Jr. YBA Spaghetti Dinner, the Boy Scouts Korean Beef Dinner, annual Betsuin Golf Tournament and several benefit movie showings.  We hope to hold these events and many others in 2025!  In case you have not heard, we now have weekly pickleball days as well!

While the activity around the Betsuin seems to be growing, it has become more apparent that we need additional volunteers to help us out.  There are many areas that could use some assistance from helping to organize and run events, to helping with the A/V group which runs the live-streaming of our weekly services.  Please let us know if you are willing to step up and help us with whatever time that you can spare…be it once a week, once a month, or occasionally!  It all adds up!

Beyond the volunteer opportunities for this year, the continued fundraising for the new Dharma Center is a huge priority.  We have currently raised about $11.5M of our goal of $16M!  We expect to break ground in Q3-Q4 of this year and we need everyone’s help to get us to the final goal.  We are extremely lucky to announce that a very generous donor has stepped up to allow us to create a new matching campaign.  They have offered to match dollar for dollar of any donation over $50,000!  We hope that you can join us and take advantage of this offer.  

So, we are off and running.  2025 is shaping up to be a busy year for the Betsuin.  I hope that you will all take advantage of everything that we have to offer.  Please let me know if you have any suggestions on how we can improve the work here at the Betsuin.

Gassho,

Steve