Kim Quang Temple’s Fundraising Committee

Kim Quang Temple’s Fundraising Committee

Subject: Writing Contributions for the Kim Quang Selected Writings book.

Dear Friends

Spring is finally in the air, bringing both its warm sunshine and a new sense of optimism. In this new year, we hope to have a successful start of the re-construction of Kim Quang Temple.

As we all know, Kim Quang Temple was established in 1978 on Alta Arden Expressway and was first known as the Vietnamese Buddhist Association of Sacramento (Association). Prior to the establishment of the Association, the temple had been an old house built in the 1950s. After the house was purchased, its garage was converted into the Main Hall and the Temple has been in operation ever since. For many years, despite its deteriorating condition of the house, the Temple has been serving as a sacred place of worship for the Buddhist community in general and the Vietnamese community in particular. In March, 2003, The Re-Construction Committee of Kim Quang Temple was founded to take charge of rebuilding the site.

During the last few years, the Committee has been working hard designing, obtaining construction permits, and raising funds for the re-construction of the temple. At long last, the Construction Permit has been approved and construction is scheduled to start in early 2006. A considerable sum of money has also been raised for this effort. However, due to the high construction cost, our fundraising efforts must continue and we will need your support more so now than ever.

To date, fund raising has been carried out through various activities such as selling July 4th fireworks, selling vegetarian food, organizing concerts, holding garage sales, etc. Our next fund raising activity for the temple will be the sale of a collection of selected writings by members, titled Kim Quang Selected Writings. The authors of the Writings will be those who participated and have been participating in Kim Quang Temple’s activities as well as those who live in the Sacramento area. The writings can be in Vietnamese or English, and can cover various genres: poetry, literature, essay, letter, music, memoir (e.g. memoir of fleeing to or settling in the US), or short stories. We are planning on offering the writings of approximately 50 authors for a book of approximatly 250 to 350 pages in length. We intend to publish 2,000 to 3,000 copies, each of which will be sold at $10 each.

Besides raising fund, the publishing of your Writings also aim to give us an opportunity to share with each other our life experience, knowledge, and our memories, both happy and sad. Hopefully, the Writings could be a spiritual gift not only for our present generation but for the next ones as well.

For the above-mentioned reasons, we would like to invite you to write and contribute your work for Kim Quang Selected Writings; and ask that you help us sell it after it has been published. The submission deadline is on Vu Lan day (August 13th, 2006) and the publishing date is Thanksgiving 2006. Please submit your writing or any questions you might have with regards to this project to Phe Bach at tamthuongdinh at gmail dot com or Thu Ngo at ngot at saccounty dot net. Along with your writing, please send a picture and a brief biography of yourself to be published in the book.

Your contribution is greatly appreciated. Let’s wish all the best for the completion of the Kim Quang Temple re-construction!

Best Regards,

Phe Bach Thu Ngo Duc Huynh