Submitted photo Local group xoxo (say 'sho-sho'), featuring (left to right) Franz Kellner, Tricia Khleif, Wendy Lanxner and Bob Novak, will perform a benefit for Oxfam's Global Emergencies Fund.

"In the beginning, it was to be a distribution point for fair trade products," explains Carter, a native of Hudson Valley, N.Y., who has lived in Takoma Park for the last 15 years. "[Products] from what I call 'endangered cultures,' indigenous cultures from around the world."

Why not? Sangha is, after all, the Sanskrit word for spiritual community as well as one of the pillars of Buddhism. But the simple idea became more complicated.

"Since I opened on 9/11, I became devoted to bringing the local community together. It galvanized day after day from that point on, becoming a center on a macro and micro level," she says.

And now, three years later, Sangha is known as a musical venue and a place for readings, performances and consciousness raising -- sometimes all these things at the same time. This Saturday, Sangha will host a benefit for Oxfam's Global Emergencies Fund.

"It was an idea that came up within my group around the time of the tsunami," says Jerome Meltzer, pianist with the Minor Thoughts Quartet. "I'd had a relationship with Sangha because we had played there several times."

Meltzer, who describes his quartet as "modern but a bit more mainstream: a straight-ahead jazz group," says that post-tsunami, many relief organizations had decided to channel funds into "forgotten" disaster areas like the Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. These places had disasters, too, but the tsunami's dramatic effects meant their plights received less media focus and subsequently less charitable aid.

"Oxfam had received so much money for tsunami relief they were channeling funds into other areas," Meltzer explains. "One of which was the international disaster relief fund."

"Their fund goes beyond tsunami relief," says Wendy Lanxner, whose band xoxo (say "sho-sho") will perform along with Minor Thoughts Quartet. "A lot of organizations are suffering right now, and this is for their global disaster relief. It includes tsunami victims, but goes beyond that."

Lanxner is a local. She grew up in Silver Spring.

"The first thing I did was play the recorder in fourth grade," she recalls. "I got this book by Maria Von Trapp that I still use with my students: 'Enjoy Your Recorder.'"

After Oakview Elementary and Blair High School, Lanxner was enjoying music on a high enough level to head off to Ohio's Oberlin Conservatory of Music. By the time she came back, she held a bachelor of arts degree in artistic creativity studies from the University of Massachusetts and a career as a musician, composer and teacher.

"We're having a hard time categorizing what we do," she says when asked about xoxo, her group with fellow singer-songwriter Tricia Khleif on guitar, (Lanxner plays mandolin, guitar and flute) plus Franz Kellner on fretless bass and Bob Novak on drums and percussion.

"Acoustic rock, contemporary acoustic -- it's hard to come up with a pat answer, but I'm loving it," she adds. "We're working on our album."

However people categorize the music of xoxo, Lanxner says it finds its jazzy counterpoint in the Minor Thoughts Quartet -- "post bebop jazz," as she describes the group. And that's fitting because she calls Sangha "THE place for avant-garde jazz in Washington. People like Rachel Cross and Lisa Moscatiello have played there."

That's because Carter is such a big fan.

"I'm a lover of improvisational, experimental, creative work in general," says the soft-spoken fair trade advocate. "This improvisational jazz is incredible music. It's amazing to be present for it."

And she would like everyone to be present, no matter what their background. Indeed, Carter says there's only one kind of group she has traditionally kept off the Sangha premises.

"The only people I haven't allowed to use this space is [representatives from] political parties," she explains.

"My purpose is to be open to everybody."

Two local groups, Minor Thoughts Quartet and xoxo, will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday in Sangha, 7014 Westmoreland Ave., Takoma Park. A $15 donation is suggested. Call 301-891-3214.