One more pair of hands is always welcome.
We have no staff — only neighbours. Everything An Lạc Hạnh does is done by volunteers, which means everything we do is something you could be part of.
Ways to help
Cook & serve
Our ceremonies and retreats run on vegetarian feasts cooked by volunteers. If you can roll a spring roll or wash a dish with good humour, the kitchen crew will welcome you like family — because that is how it works here.
Pack & deliver
Before Tết and other festive times we pack food hampers for families doing it tough, then deliver them across Melbourne's north. Drivers, packers and list-checkers all needed — bring the kids; it is a beautiful thing for them to learn.
Build & tend
Working bees keep our Cyprus Street home welcoming — gardening, cleaning, small repairs, setting up for ceremonies. Morning tea is provided and the conversation is half the work.
Guide & translate
Bilingual speakers help elders navigate services, welcome new migrants, and bridge Vietnamese and English at our study circles and events. If you move between both worlds, you are exactly who we need.
Starting is this simple.
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Say hello
Email info@anlachanh.org and tell us roughly how you'd like to help — or just that you'd like to. A real person (a volunteer, naturally) will write back.
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Come along once
Join a ceremony, a working bee or a study circle with no commitment at all. See how it feels. Most people stay for lunch.
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Find your corner
Kitchen, garden, translation, setup crew — over time everyone finds the work that fits their hands. That corner becomes yours.
Why our volunteers stay for decades.
Ask our longest-serving volunteers why they still come, and nobody mentions duty. They mention the aunties who taught them to fold bánh chưng. The teenager who thanked an elder in careful Vietnamese. The way a hall full of candlelight makes a Tuesday feel holy.
Volunteering here is not a shift you clock into. It is a community you become part of — and most people who join us for one event are still with us years later.