Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/138564_butsudan08.html

On September 8, 2003 the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran a feature article on "a new program at the Seattle Betsuin Buddhist Church [that] encourages people to donate butsudans that are no longer being used, then recycles them to other families." (In Soka Gakkai Buddhism, a butsudan is "a boxlike, wooden altar used for daily offerings to Buddha and family ancestors," as the article defined it.) "Several years ago, temple leaders noticed butsudans showing up at thrift stores and rummage sales. A few times, they heard of someone tossing a shrine in the garbage. They discovered that as the Nisei -- the first generation of Japanese Americans born in this country -- began to pass away, their antique butsudans sometimes became orphans."