Every year, the school owners hold a tam boon, a special merit making ceremony where food or other essential items are offered to the monks. The following is an extract from Dennis Segaller's excellent book called Thai Ways which perfectly describes such a ceremony in a typical Thai household:

The ceremony needs careful planning about a month ahead. The householder must visit the temple of his choice to make sure the monks and the abbot will be free to come on the chosen day. Each monk must have a cushion to lean against while chanting, and a mat to sit on. The housewife must also plan all the food for the monks, which must of course be of the highest quality. Several different dishes will have to be cooked early in the day, and desert and mountains of fresh fruit must be provided as well as soft drinks, cigarettes, and a set of flowers, candle and incense sticks for each monk. They are also given envelopes with money for their day-to-day needs.

The day before the ceremony, all the furniture is moved out of the living-room and the cushions and mats are arranged neatly along the walls and floor. The household's main Buddha image is set up on an altar by the door, immediately to the right of where the abbot will sit. Large yellow candles in holders are placed on either side of the image along with flowers. A bowl filled with water to be consecrated during the ceremony is placed on the floor so as to be within the abbot's reach.

The sacred white cord called sai sin keeps out evil spirits and protects everyone and everything inside it, so it must be draped around the entire outer wall of the compound or garden. The sai sin is passed into the room where the ceremony will be held, draped across the Buddha image's right hand, and then passed out again and on round the garden until the premises are completley encircled. Then it is brought back into the room again, to the Buddha image and from there the spool is placed on the abbot's mat.

The householder must pick up the nine monks on the day at about 10 a.m. All the family and guests must be seated in the room by the time the monks arrive at the house. The monks take their places, and the ceremony begins with the householder prostrating himself before the abbot and then lighting the two large candles on the altar. He then lights three incense sticks.

The abbot passes the reel of sai sin cord to the monk sitting next to him, and from there it passes from hand to hand until all the monks are holding the white thread. The abbot then lights a white candle and fixes it firmly across the rim of the bowl. As the melted wax drips into the bowl during the chanting, the water inside becomes consecrated. The holy water is called nam mon.

The Pali chanting begins with the abbot reciting a few short passages which the householder must repeat after him. Then all nine monks take up the chanting, which continues, deep and sonorous, for 30 to 40 minutes, while the family and guests sit with palms joined in a wai.

By now it is time to offer the food which has been so carefully and lovingly prepared. The monks' meal must start not later than 11 a.m. to allow them enough time to eat in comfort and be finished before mid-day, after which all Buddhist monks are forbidden to eat. Everyone lends a hand in serving the monks.

When the monks have eaten their fill and relaxed, the dishes are cleared away and there follows a final five minute period of chanting. During this, the householder pours clean water over his own outstretched forefinger into a small collecting vassel, wishing that the benefit of the food given to the monks may pass on to the spirits of the dead. (This water-pouring is called truat nam.)

Finally, the abbot blesses everyone, including the house itself, by splashing holy water from the bowl. After the monks have left, the householder quietly pours the water from the small vessel onto the ground at the root of a large tree, making another wish as he does so. The sai sin draped round the garden is left for the wind to blow away during the next month or so.