A large stone archway decorated with Buddhist images greets visitors at the entrance to the Cambodian Cultural Center, which dates from 1990, when the businessman Saroeung Vay founded the organization to provide a common ground on which Cambodians and other Buddhists would be able to gather. Functioning as both a religious and community center, the Cambodian Cultural Center is now a place where Cambodian and Laotian refugees interact with one another, share their culture, and express their faith. 

Recently, the organization acquired a plot of roughly ten acres of land that contains a two-story, sprawling structure reserved for religious purposes. That space includes an old barn converted to a dance or reception hall, a volleyball court, and a basketball court. It also includes a few other smaller structures, such as a small, brightly painted shrine.  The grounds are home to six resident monks, only one of whom speaks English. With about 150 member families, the Center is a mix of generations and traditions.  A small group of those members attend weekly services, and hundreds from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia travel to the temple four or five times each year for holiday celebrations, which involve chanting and bowing and are performed in the members' native tongue.  In one of those communal rituals, which is traditional in Theravadin countries, devotees present the monks with gifts of gratitude, such as new robes, sandals, toiletries, food, and other necessities.  While it is primarily adults who attend the religious services, members of the younger generation come to the center for social interaction. Even if the generations don't always concur on other issues, the refugees and their children agree that the Center is a gathering place that has kept alive the cultural traditions of their homeland. 
EA and MZ