Từ Hiếu Pagoda, Đắk Lắk 2026: Gifts and Wheelchairs in the Central Highlands

On March 17, 2026, the Compassionate Hands team reached Từ Hiếu Pagoda in Đắk Lắk, giving gifts, rice and wheelchairs to villagers of many ethnic groups before heading to the central coast.

On March 17, 2026, the Compassionate Hands Foundation team (Hội Từ Thiện Bàn Tay Nhân Ái) reached Từ Hiếu Pagoda in Đắk Lắk province, a stop on its trip through the Central Highlands. The bus passed endless coffee farms, the scent drifting in with the early wind, and arrived to find villagers already gathered.

Đắk Lắk and the villagers around the pagoda

According to the narrator, this is a land of more than 50 ethnic groups, each with its own culture and weathered faces marked by the mountains and forests. The villagers waited under one pagoda roof, each in a different situation but all waiting for the same distribution.

As at earlier pagodas, the team started work at once. Boxes were unloaded and arranged neatly. Each member found a task of their own: some supported frail elders step by step, patiently, as if afraid that hurrying would hurt them; others bent down to push wheelchairs to those who needed them. They gave gifts, and also the presence of someone sitting beside you.

A new wheelchair

A team member talked with an elderly person who had just received a wheelchair. The person said they had wanted a wheelchair for a long time but could not afford one.

I am so happy, Thầy. Thank you to the donors who supported me with this wheelchair. I am extremely happy.

Wheelchair recipient at Từ Hiếu Pagoda

The team member wished them good health.

The foundation's words: no distinction of region or religion

Venerable Thích Minh Nhựt stood before the villagers and reminded them that today's gifts came from many donors who pooled their goodwill and sent it here. Every kilogram of rice and every packet of noodles carries the warmth of a human hand.

A representative of the foundation described its purpose: to come to Vietnam and help people in remote areas, including people in hardship, people with disabilities and poor students who keep trying to study.

We make no distinction of region, of religion, or of ethnicity.

Representative of the Compassionate Hands Foundation

The representative added that among today's recipients some were not Buddhist and some belonged to other ethnic groups, but wherever there are people in need, the foundation goes. The representative also thanked the abbess for handing out the monthly rice on the foundation's behalf and for arranging the distribution so carefully.

Next, a monk reminded the villagers that most of those seated there were past working age. The monk said the donors far away also have to set aside part of their retirement money to share with compatriots in Vietnam. So, having received a gift, one should try to live more cheerfully and gently. Those with material means share material things; those with little can share kind words, a smile and attention. The monk called this planting good seeds, following the Buddhist law of cause and effect.

A Di Đà Phật between giver and receiver

Many elders with snow-white hair and wrinkled hands held their rice booklets and gift tickets as if holding something precious. Some sat in wheelchairs, watching young people bend down to push them, with the look of people who have not been cared for in this way in a long time.

As gifts were handed over, both giver and receiver softly murmured A Di Đà Phật (Amitabha Buddha). According to the narrator, in that moment the two sides were not only exchanging goods but receiving a blessing together.

Leaving the Highlands

The distribution at Từ Hiếu Pagoda ended warmly. The team had little time to linger, with a six-hour road ahead. Members packed up and boarded the bus, leaving the Central Highlands for the central coast, where the team will keep giving to those waiting.