Growing Into Leadership: Tzu Chi Academy Alumni Stories
Written by Jiali Liu
Translated by H.B. Qin
Edited by Ida Eva Zielinska
Published #80 | Spring 2026 Issue
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“The certification day truly felt like a family gathering,” Amber Lee said, looking back on January 18, 2026, when she officially became a certified Tzu Chi volunteer during a ceremony at Tzu Chi USA National Headquarters. On stage with other certification recipients, Lee looked out at familiar faces in the audience. Volunteers who had watched her grow up were there to witness the moment.
Many childhood friends were also receiving their certification alongside her. They had met when they were young and, years later, found themselves walking the same path side by side once more.
For Lee, becoming a certified Tzu Chi volunteer wasn’t a sudden turning point, because Tzu Chi has been part of her story since early childhood. “I honestly can’t recall a time in my life without Tzu Chi,” she said. “Everything with Tzu Chi just feels like a natural progression of growing up.”
Amber Lee’s mother, Huichun Lin, watched from the audience as Lee stood on stage. Seeing her daughter there, Lin quietly reflected on how their shared Tzu Chi journey had begun years ago, the moment she first took Lee by the hand and walked into Tzu Chi Academy, San Dimas, in California.
Integrating Character Education Into Daily Life
Amber Lee was seven years old when she began attending Tzu Chi Academy, San Dimas. She doesn’t remember the details of that first day. What she does remember is the weekend routine that followed: her mother driving, Lee in the passenger seat, the street scenes sliding by outside the window. That familiar route became part of her life for years.
“I wasn’t really concerned about how well she learned Chinese,” Huichun Lin admitted. Sending her daughter to the Academy wasn’t about grades or outstanding performance. Instead, she hoped that while her daughter was still growing up, she would gradually develop a sense of values and what matters.
Indeed, at the Academy, language learning is only one part of the curriculum. While children study Chinese characters in class, they also take part in activities that build values and foster environmental awareness, and visit nursing homes, practicing respect and compassion through service. These activities aren’t aimed at producing “educational achievements,” yet over time they weave character education into the children’s daily lives.
As a child, Lee never felt she was being “lectured” at the Academy. She simply followed along with everyone else and, without realizing it, began to develop a way of understanding right conduct and making sense of the world. “There are many things you only realize later, looking back, that you had already learned back then,” she observed.
Lin remembers a small shift that happened at home. “I noticed Amber started asking her dad to sort the trash,” she said with a smile. It wasn’t a homework assignment. It was a child beginning to form her own habits and judgments about environmental responsibility in daily life. The moment made Lin realize that the impact of humanistic education doesn’t hinge on what is taught in a single class, but on how children begin to see everyday routines differently once they return home.
Mother and Daughter, Side by Side
Back then, Huichun Lin spent nearly every weekend at Tzu Chi Academy, San Dimas. Initially, she simply helped out in the school office, handling small but essential administrative and financial tasks. “I didn’t think much about it at the time. My child was studying here, and so many volunteers were willing to give their time. I just wanted to lend a hand.” So while Amber Lee attended classes, Lin worked in the office.
Lee often lingered after class, not rushing home but instead settling into a corner of the office to wait while her mother finished up. For Lee, Tzu Chi wasn’t a place “to serve,” but a warm, secure space. “When I waited for my mom in the office, the Tzu Chi volunteers she worked with were especially kind to me. I remember seeing them every Sunday, and they would always greet me and chat. Those ‘aunts and uncles’ practically watched me grow up.” That companionship didn’t fade as she got older.
After Lee graduated from the Academy, her mother heard from volunteers that there was a Tzu Chi Youth (Tzu Shao) Group she could participate in and brought her back to Tzu Chi. “I joined the Youth Group in eighth grade and quickly fell in love with the atmosphere there,” Lee said. “We Tzu Shao members were especially close, and we could go out together to help others. Having good friends by my side while also getting to meet different people and help others, those two things combined made me realize soon after joining the Youth Group that I wanted to stay with Tzu Chi and participate in its activities.”
Throughout middle and high school, Lee held various leadership roles in the Tzu Chi Youth Group. “When I was a Tzu Shao, the team members I led came from different schools and regions, not just my own classmates. So I had to learn how to make everyone feel included and build team cohesion from scratch.”
After graduating from high school, Lee attended the University of California, Berkeley, where she joined the campus Tzu Chi Collegiate Association and later became its president. These experiences introduced her early to the weight of responsibility.
Being able to shoulder so much responsibility during high school and college was truly invaluable.
The skills Lee developed through her leadership roles, first in the Tzu Chi Youth Group and later in the Tzu Chi Collegiate Association, didn’t stay only within volunteer activities. The inner strength cultivated through humanistic education also supported her through the pressures and challenges of a demanding university environment.
“I learned to be grateful and cherish what I have,” she explained. “The Academy profoundly shaped me. If I have a stressful day at school, I remind myself that being able to worry about these ‘troubles’ is already a blessing. At least I have food, clothing, and a place to live.”
As her daughter continued to move forward, Lin remained by her side. After years of assisting at Tzu Chi Academy as a parent volunteer, she became a certified Tzu Chi volunteer in 2013. When volunteer leaders for the Tzu Chi Youth Group were in short supply, she took on that role, a commitment she has upheld for 13 years. “Initially, it was definitely because my child was there,” she admitted. “But I stayed because I saw this place supporting so many children as they grew, and I wanted to be there for them.” Through the years, mother and daughter continued on this shared path, one moving from childhood into adulthood, the other accompanying her along the way.
Seeing Suffering Up Close
Amber Lee first encountered the profound impact of “witnessing suffering” while still in elementary school. At the time, Huichun Lin was participating in Tzu Chi’s volunteer training program. She often accompanied volunteers during home visits and medical outreach and brought her two daughters with her.
During one free dental care outreach event, the two sisters helped their mother at the site. Dentists examined patients inside a Tzu Chi Dental Mobile Clinic, while volunteers provided free haircuts nearby. As they worked, Lee and her younger sister watched people come and go with curiosity.
In the haircut area, a man noticed the two girls and suddenly remarked, “You both look just like my daughter.” The children instinctively asked, “Where is your daughter?” He said his wife and daughter had been swept away by the tsunami triggered by a major earthquake in Japan and never returned.
At that moment, everything seemed to go still. Lin recalled that the children were so shocked they couldn’t say anything. Later, the man’s story was published in the Tzu Chi Journal. Lin read the article to her daughters and asked, “Do you remember the man we met at the free clinic that day? He was a tsunami survivor.”
“Only by witnessing these things in person can children truly understand what it means to cherish blessings,” Lin said. She realized that for her daughters, this wasn’t a lesson taught, but an insight into the real world. For the first time, they understood that people could lose everything in a single catastrophe. “At such a young age, it was through volunteering with me at Tzu Chi that they were exposed to realities children their age would never normally experience.”
Looking back years later, the children rarely spoke about what they saw, yet those scenes had quietly shaped the paths they chose. Lee’s younger sister decided to pursue dentistry as a career, a choice influenced by what she had seen at that free clinic. As for Lee, she kept those insights close to her heart. Much later, they resurfaced when she found herself once again witnessing suffering up close.
Over more than a decade on the Tzu Chi path, Huichun Lin and Amber Lee have accompanied one another as mother and daughter, witnessing each other’s growth and supporting one another spiritually. Photos/Tzu Chi USA
Coming Full Circle
In January 2025, massive wildfires erupted across Southern California. Amber Lee and her mother, Huichun Lin, traveled to affected neighborhoods to help survivors register for assistance. Unlike when she was a child, this time Lee wasn’t only lending a hand in the background. She sat with each survivor, listened to what had happened, and guided them through applying for the aid they required. “In past Tzu Chi activities, my interactions with community members were mostly just exchanging greetings. But that time, I had to truly listen to their stories,” she recounted.
Many of the survivors endured immense trauma. Some of them just wanted someone to talk to. Lee keenly sensed that what the survivors were experiencing wasn’t a temporary inconvenience, but a moment when their lives had been abruptly disrupted. “I saw that people facing the same situation reacted completely differently, and that scene has stayed with me.”
While helping them, I kept thinking, ‘I truly want to develop more skills to better support these communities.
As a result, Lee changed her major from economics to law and was admitted to the University of California, Irvine School of Law. For her, law isn’t about abstract theory, but a practical toolkit for helping those in genuine need.
“In law school, I realized my classmates were also using their expertise to assist disaster survivors, and some are still doing it today,” Lee said. “They even mentioned Tzu Chi. That moment felt incredibly meaningful and showed me how the skills I’m learning can genuinely serve communities better in the future.”
Everything seemed to connect. Lee described it as coming full circle, from starting as a volunteer to pursuing further education because she wanted to do more, and finally seeing new possibilities for helping others in her new role.
On the day Lee received her Tzu Chi volunteer certification, Lin looked on from her seat as her daughter stepped forward. In that moment, she felt not overwhelming emotion but a calm certainty about the choices she had made in guiding her daughter over the years. “I never really set specific goals for her to achieve. But seeing her stand there, I felt a deep sense of peace,” she said.
Today, Amber Lee is no longer just the daughter of volunteer Huichun Lin, and Lin is no longer merely a mother who stayed because of her child. Each has found her own footing within Tzu Chi, yet they remain aligned and continue moving in the same direction. Lin’s steady companionship was the foundation for Lee to step into responsibility, and Lin, in turn, was inspired to take on more herself. In their shared journey, Great Love is no longer only something taught: It is a path that both are willing to continue walking.
