BATA raises $8,000 for Cancer Institute Foundation

BATA raises $8,000 for Cancer Institute Foundation during Telugu Musical Concert – “SwaraSudha”

On the occasion of Telugu festival, Sankranthi, Bay Area Telugu Association (BATA) and Ravi Tax Services in association with Cancer Institute Foundation (CIF) hosted a Telugu Musical Concert, “SwaraSudha”, held on Jan 19, 2008, at Chabot College Theater, Hayward, California. This event was sponsored by prominent local businesses such as Ravi Tax Services & Raji Insurance, Scopus Consulting Group, and Peacock Indian Café. In spite of long weekend for many, almost 400 people attended the event. During the event, the attendees have generously donated money for improving and maintaining the free cancer treatment services provided by Cancer Institute (WIA), Chennai, India. The Cancer Institute was founded in 1954 by Dr. Muthulaksmi Reddy with Gandhian principles, India’s first woman medical graduate and social re-former. It has grown from a 2 room centre to 423 beds of which 297 are free. Annually, the Institute sees over 110,000 patients.

To kick-off the fundraising, Mr. Jayaram Komati (President Elect of Telugu Association of North America and Owner of Swagath group of restaurants) donated $1,000. The Grand Sponsor of the event, Mr. Ravi Gondipalli (CEO, Ravi Tax Services and Raji Insurance) has donated undisclosed amount. This is followed by Raman Sanchula (Owner of Peacock group of Indian Restaurants) and Mr. Kishore Kumar (CEO, Scopus Consulting Group) and Dr. Rao Papolu (President, SRA OSS Inc.) have donated $1,000 each. Several attendees have generously donated for the cause. The total amount raised from the event was approximately $8,000. The attendees include Veeru Vuppala (Regional VP of TANA), NRI TDP leaders, BATA and CIF volunteers.

Speaking at the event, Mr. Jayaram Komati, Mr. Ravi Gondipalli, and Mr. Raman Sanchula have shared the similar thoughts that cancer has no boundaries and hence we all need to come forward to support this great initiation and free services provided by the Cancer Institute (WIA). This institute provides services to all regardless of their region or state of residence.

Mrs. Vijaya Aasuri of BATA served as Master of Ceremony for the evening. To begin the cultural/musical event, Aasuri had put together Sankranthi traditional “bommala koluvu” on the stage as well as “bhogi pallu” for the kids. Additionally, Vijaya Aasuri also choreographed several dances that were performed by kids of the ages 3 through 15. The songs include “Rabbaru gajulu..rabbaru gajulu thechane..”, “chamka chamka chamkirey”, “Naare Naare Naare Naare nannare nare”, etc. The kids’ songs were intermixed/spaced between the live orchestra programs performed by the VDAZE group which was led by Kansas Raja. VDAZE is an young, talented and vibrant musical group based in the Bay Area. VDAZE singers include Aanand, Prasad, Ranjini, and Sheela. The musical instruments performed by: Arun Caddy (drums), Arun (percussion), Ashwin (flute), Kishmu (keyboards), Magesh (guitar), Nagaraj (keyboards), and Shonali (table). The sound engineering was managed by Mukund “Mux”. VDAZE team sang mix of several hit songs such as “ravi varmake andani oke oka andanivo”, “Jhummandi nadam”, “good morning Hyderabad”, “nannu dochukunduvate”, “aa ante amalapuram”, “sivasankari”, “mounamgaane”, “neetho cheppanaa”, “Ippatikinka”, “aakelestha annam”, and “aaresukoboyi paresukunna”. The program started in the evening, and went past 10PM with a lot of enthusiasm from the audience. There was a great support from the audience for each and every song. Parents were surrounded the podium with camcorders when children of ages from 3 to 15 were cutely dancing. Several of these children were first timers on the stage. Even several of adults danced for the songs sung by the VDAZE team as listed above. There were approximately 30 kids participated in the dances. With live orchestra, and children & adult dances, the environment reflected the exciting festivity atmosphere.

During the event, Mr. Ramesh Konda (Marketing Chair of BATA) felicitated the event Sponsors with recognition Plaque. Speaking at this event, Mr. Kannan of CIF mentioned that Executive Committee members and volunteers of BATA, VDAZE and CIF have worked diligently for past 6-8 weeks in publicizing and promoting this event. Kannan thanked all attendees and event sponsors and volunteers of both BATA and CIF for making this event a grand success. Mr. Yugandhar Karakala (President of BATA) and Prasad Mangina (Secretary of BATA) have also thanked the CIF and BATA volunteers for their relentless effort in making this program successful. BATA leadership includes Yugandhar Reddy  Karakala, Prasad Mangina, Kalyan Kattamuri, Srinivas Kolli, Vijaya Aasuri, Sreedhar Chava, Ramesh Konda, Srinivas Mangipudi, Satheesh Pola and Veeru Vuppala Towards the end of the program, there was a free raffle held for IPOD, Mobile DVD Player, MP3 Player, and Hair Styling System, which was sponsored by  www.BharatFamily.com.

The pictures from the event are available at: http://bata.org/2007events/swarasudha/photos

Please visit www.bata.org or www.cifwia.org for additional information. For on-line donations to CIF, please visit: http://www.cifwia.org/appeal/donate/donate.php