Photo by: the Lao Buddhist Temple website
Students, dancers and hip-hop artists alike donated their time and effort on Feb. 18 to “Project Renew,” a fundraiser event hosted in Davis Auditorium to raise money for the reconstruction of the Lao Buddhist Temple located in Westminster, Colo., that burned to the ground on Dec. 5.
Joie Ha, a freshman DU student from Aurora, organized the event along with the Pioneer Breakers, a non-profit DU student hip-hop organization, and Next Generation Voices, a non-profit organization whose mission is the empowerment of young Asian Americans.
“I saw this outpouring of support on Facebook from all these people younger than me about how the Lao Buddhist Temple has always been a pillar of support in the community, helping new immigrants, providing cultural classes for the younger generation and with gang prevention. It really inspired me to try and give back, even though I’m not religiously affiliated with Buddhism or even Laotian,” said Ha.
According to Ha, the head monk of the temple has been diagnosed with cancer and opted out of chemotherapy. This development led to a large rush to raise the money needed to start and finish reconstruction of the new temple before he passes away.
On the same day, the Asian Student Alliance hosted a MAASU (Midwest Asian American Students Union) Mixer event for members of Asian American student organizations to come together.
“Asian Student Alliance helped announce Project Renew and we had a lot of volunteers on the day of the event from all over, including Asian Student Alliance at Regis and Asian Unity and Vietnamese Student Association from CU-Boulder,” said Ha.
Freshman Sophia Man, a member of DU’s Asian Student Alliance, was one of the volunteers for Project Renew. She contributed to sidewalk-chalk drawings informing DU’s campus about the event.
“Joie lives on my floor so I heard a lot about Project Renew from her. I also heard a lot about it from friends, clubs like Asian Student Alliance (ASA) and from where I work, the Center for Multicultural Excellence,” said Man.
Volunteer performers pitched in time and effort. This included Break Effects, a hip-hop group who were season 5 finalists on MTV’s “America’s Best Dance Crew.”
“My favorite thing about the performances was the fact that they were so diverse,” said Man.
An R&B rap group from the Lao temple sang as well. There were hit performances by Denver Taiko, a Japanese drumming ensemble, an Indian Dance group and a Lao Buddhist dance group comprised of 6-to-9 year olds.
“There was a big effort to make our performances diverse not only in race, but also in age,” said Ha.
Admission to Project Renew was $5, but many attendees donated extra money, raising about $4,400 for the new temple.
“In the end, we’re all the same, no racial or cultural boundaries. If we stand together, we can be stronger and achieve more,” said Ha.
