Welcome OCBC Jr. YBA

By Brianne Hanamoto | She/Her/Hers | OCBC Jr. YBA Co- President

Originally Published: February 22nd, 2020

Thank you so much for inviting Orange County Buddhist Church (OCBC) Jr. YBA to be part of The Young Buddhist Editorial!

We are located in Anaheim, CA and are excited to connect with other young Buddhists both near and far.

OCBC Jr. YBA consists of teens in grades 9th through 12th. This year we have 60 members and four advisors. We meet once a month for a General Meeting and to prepare the church’s monthly Korin newsletter for bulk mailing.

Jr. YBA kicked off 2020 with some great events. Here are some of our highlights so far!

On January 18th we attended Southern District Seminar 1, “Samsara Bowl”, at San Fernando Valley Hongwanji. There were fun and interactive workshops, such as card games, puzzles, and a round of hot potato, that taught us about our G.A.S., an acronym for the Three Poisons: Greed, Anger, Stupidity/ignorance. After the Southern District Seminar, we headed to Winnetka Bowl to enjoy bowling.

The Kyoto Girls High School came to visit OCBC on February 9th!

We look forward to their annual visit. Each year, some of the seniors from Kyoto Girls’ Junior and Senior High School fly to the U.S. for a few weeks and stop by OCBC for a day. We loved meeting the girls this year, playing games with them, drawing, and talking. We performed two dances for them and the Kyoto Girls surprised us with both singing and dancing! It was a fun, memorable day. By the time they had to leave, we were all sad to see them go.

We held a bento fundraiser after service on February 2nd and would like to thank everyone who bought lunch to help support our seminars and events.

More updates to come, and we are excited to be sharing our youth involvement with the Young Buddhist Editorial!