Epaper
Spread India Diwali 2007 Event was a grand success with around 300 guests attending the event at St Thoma Church in Metro Detroit city Farmington MI. At this event SpreadIndia raised $100,000 towards educational and rural developmental activities for the underprivileged in India
The event was kicked off by customary lighting of lamps (diyas) by Guest Speakers Dr Prakasham Tata, Senator Hansen Clark and Sai Padma. Following the unveiling of Mahatma Gandhi Potrait, kids presented the prayer dance.
Sridhar Patel, founder president of SpreadIndia kicked off the event by going thru’ the educational programs and development works taken up by SpreadIndia in 2007. He presented a very motivating and encouraging picture of activities on child education, study centers, SpreadIndia orphanage and the very timely construction of checkdam project for rural farmers.
Dr. Prakasham Tata Scientist/Philanthropist, who earned his Doctoral degree in Public Health and Environmental Sciences in 1966, motivated the audience with his insight and observations into 4 decades of research as well as charity works spanning several countries around the world.
He highlighted the differences between literacy, education and general intelligence in people. He gave several examples prioritizing and taking up the right cause for rural india as there are several problems affecting our rural brethern.
Senator Hansen Clark was extremely delighted to be among Indian guests as he is the only senator in Michigan of Indian descent. His dad migrated from West Bengal to US in 1950s. He represents Detroit in Michigan Senate and talked about need to take care of under privileged. He went down the memory lane on how his mother managed to support his passion to complete a degree in Art as he was a natural artist from childhood.
Michigan Representative Andy Meisner thanked the organization for the invitation and gave a message that despite economic hard times in Michigan, organizations like SpreadIndia is taking up the charity works. He appreciated all the hard work of SpreadIndia team.
Sai Padma gave a brief yet powerful talk on importance of charity in life. She highlighted works by her organization in Chicago in Vizianagaram tribal areas of AP. She ended her speech with a beautiful song “Vaishnava Janatho” – a favorite song of Mahatma Gandhi
Venkat Aekka, Board Advisor SpreadIndia acknowledged guests and mentors in the hall. He gave a motivational speech about Mahatma Gandhi and his selfless style of doing service to humanity. Mahatma never encouraged his children into politics and struggled for 4 decades to get our independence. Finally on the day when India got independence in 1947, when Lord Mountbatten was handing over the government to Pandit Nehru, he was helping poor victims of communal violence in slum areas of West Bengal. He invented a great weapon of non-violence to solve all international and national issues which we never use nowadays
Shailaja Kumar Nannuru, active SpreadIndia volunteer was the MC (master of ceremony) for the evening. He did an excellent job introducing all speakers and elegantly unveiled the programs for the evening.
Uday Kumar Chapalamadugu, despite his busy schedule, took time to be the MC of for the fundraiser segment. He set a target of $100, 000 for the evening and with his interactive and humorous style motivated audience to donate more and do their best to help the under privileged.
Alkananda Jupudi and Vasudha Kommarigiri coordinated excellent cultural programs comprising of songs, folk dances and melodious keyboard music by Rishabh Raghu. Venkat Aekka and Alka presented few Karoake songs in the end. The participants for cultural programs include Medha Sripada, Nidhi Sripada, Rishabh Raghu, Shriya Suresh
Dhyana Dasari, Ananya Yanamandra, Abhiram sastry, Avinash sastry,Rithivc Jupudi, Reva Jupudi, Sharanya Kandagatla, Yamini Mada, Shradha Shah
All SpreadIndia volunteered contributed their best for the event. Mr & Mrs. Murali, ChandraShekar, Narayana Rao, Sainath, Prakash Raj, Sudhir Kulkarni, Venkat Aekka, Durga & Padma Patel have been involved in planning and execution of a successful Diwali Event 2007 for SpreadIndia.
