The Philadelphia Tibetan community now has its own community center in Norristown, writes Juliana Feliciano Reyes for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

For the last few years, the Tibetan Association of Philadelphia has been renting churches and temples and borrowing other spaces to host cultural events and language classes.

“We’ve been waiting for so long,” said Tenzin Shakya, former school director of the Tibetan Association of Philadelphia.

“Every member, we have a dream that one day we get a center.”

The incoming association president Tsering Jurme said that the members worked on weekends for four months to remodel the abandoned church they purchased for their community center.

They refinished the floors and built a floor-to-ceiling traditional wooden structure to showcase a Buddha statue and other cultural symbols.

Almost 200 Tibetans have been living in exile in the Philadelphia area since the Chinese invaded their homeland in 1950 so cultural preservation is important for the community.

Read more about the new community center of the Tibetan Association of Philadelphia in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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