At a complex of nondescript buildings in Kaimuki one recent weekend, a project of charity was in full swing. Actually, two projects were underway.

In one room, about a dozen teenagers organized a pile of used children’s books into various categories — subject matter, appropriate grade range — to go to homeless children in West Oahu. In another building nearby, a group of adults cooked up a batch of jai, or Buddhist’s Delight, the Chinese dish often served at Chinese New Year. The jai was being sold to raise money to upgrade the kitchen so that it could extend their food service programs.

It was a fairly typical weekend day for members of the Tzu Chi Foundation Hawaii, a chapter of a social service agency started more than 20 years ago by Taiwanese immigrants. Buddhist in outlook but nonecumenical and diverse in practice, the nonprofit organization has been quietly serving the needy in Hawaii and the Pacific ever since, and is now looking for ways to expand further.

“We’re not high profile like the Red Cross and Salvation Army,” said Louisa Collier, a board member of the foundation. “We’re thinking that our office can be a community center to help out our neighborhood first. Hopefully we can offer some tai chi or yoga or exercise classes.”

Tzu Chi, which means “kindness, compassion” in Chinese, was founded in 1966 in Taiwan by a Buddhist monk, Master Cheng Yen, who was inspired by the work of Christian missionaries working in Taiwan. She started the organization by asking 30 housewives to save two cents a day for charity, emphasizing that donating such a small amount daily would breed a habit of giving. The effort has developed into a formidable organization with millions of members working in about 100 countries.

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In Taiwan, Tzu Chi is a huge presence in areas of education, health and environmental issues, as well as building and operating hospitals and schools.

“When people think of charity or disaster relief, people in Taiwan will always (think) of Tzu Chi first,” said Victoria Fan, a professor of public health at the University of Hawaii and a member of the ­Hawaii foundation. “It’s bigger, much bigger than the Red Cross. It has that kind of household name status.”

Hawaii’s chapter was established in the mid-1990s after some physicians who had emigrated from Taiwan invited a Tzu Chi delegation to appear here. Fan’s father, Dr. Fong-Liang Fan, was one of those ­physicians, and he and other doctors went on to establish a free clinic in Chinatown, which ran for 17 years.

Fan was a child at the time and remembers being inspired by the story of the housewives “with this sudden desire to give back to the community.” Once the organization got started here, it helped organize activities like visits to nursing homes “to bring some brief and fleeting joy to seniors who were disabled or living in a nursing home situation,” said Fan, who eventually went to Taiwan to study with Master Cheng Yen.

One of the characteristics of Tzu Chi is its near instantaneous decision-making. A member will propose a project like a food giveaway, or distributing debit cards to flood victims — since 2008, it has given nearly $50,000 to North Shore residents affected by flooding — and members will come together to help. There’s minimal red tape or bureaucracy hindering quick action.

For Wendy Loh, such a nimble process helped fulfill a timely goal. A frequent volunteer with other organizations, she first found out about Tzu Chi while trying to help a Miss Hawaii pageant contestant find a way to send a terminally ill young man to Disneyland. He had aged out of the Make-A-Wish program.

“When they came to Tzu Chi, they said, ‘No problem. Let’s go,’ ” Loh said. “They all went immediately because time was of the essence.”

Tzu Chi is virtually all-­volunteer, with only one part-time administrator on staff, which seems to remove the sense of obligation that might come up otherwise, said Collier, who works in information technology at the University of Hawaii. “People help when they can, when they have time,” she said.

Her entire family is active with Tzu Chi. Her husband, Silas, who is in the construction business, has been involved in its disaster relief activities. “We’ve got the tents, we’ve got the generators, ready to respond when there’s an emergency, right away,” he said.

He especially likes the fact that Tzu Chi takes no cut from donations, with every dollar collected going to those in need. “There’s nothing off the top, no overhead at all,” he said.

Their teenage son Damon was helping out with the book drive and had worked previously on a clothing drive. “We’re just helping people, and we might do something after this, too,” Damon said. “It depends on how many people we have, if we can do it, and keep the motivation up.”

Although its roots are in Buddhism, Tzu Chi members say there’s no religious or spiritual requirement. There are no organized prayer sessions or services at its Kaimuki headquarters, a former preschool site that has classrooms for its Chinese school, kitchen facilities and some modest residences for visitors.

“(Members) all like to do volunteer work,” Collier said. “They all want to help out without getting stuck into the religious type of thing.”

Loh, a devout Christian, remembers helping out at a fundraising banquet and asking whether it should open with an invocation or a blessing but was told ,“No, no, we don’t do that,” but that since she was a Christian, she was welcome to pray.

“I was very impressed that (although) this was a Buddhist organization, religion doesn’t matter,” Loh said. “It’s all-inviting, all-inclusive, and so that’s really amazing.”

Perhaps the one area where Buddhism comes into play at Tzu Chi is vegetarianism. It is in keeping with the Buddhist respect for all living beings as well as being good for one’s health. So when it sells or distributes food, it is vegetarian, with jai being a favorite.

Lora Tran, who emigrated to the U.S. in 1989 from her native Vietnam, was the cook for Tzu Chi’s recent fundraiser. She’s cooked jai for another Buddhist event as well.

“I’ve done a lot of charity work,” she said through an interpreter, “but I like this one because it’s more on the hands-on side.”

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Find out more about the Tzu Chi Foundation Hawaii at facebook.com/hawaiitzuchi.