So, its been a while since your favorite Americorp VISTA has posted about her work :) I know that you must all miss me very much and so, I have decided to fill you in on what's been happening so far this year. The month of January, although it was slow, was exciting. I got introduced to Chandrasekar Uncle of the SSVT Temple and learned about his upcoming SAT program. It was good to know that he already had a curriculum and that there were a suitable number of beneficiaries. He needed more tutors. SO! I accidentally? ended up getting him 3 volunteers. I guess you can say that it was all for the good . .the program hopefully is better supported now and it can continue to grow to a point in which the community will accept it.
I also ended up hosting a Seva Saturday Tea Time and the event was supposed to be for all of the local college students and youth to talk about the topic: "Why Seva?" and the changes in the temple that they would like to see, to help them do seva. I ended up meeting the leaders of the temple and our very own Anju -ji! She and Dr. Siva were talking about not one but 2 possible White House Conferences! (Amaing ya?) . I get to coordinate some part of the event :) Also, I met Colonel Ravi Chaudhary and he was extremely informative on what he can do to, get the word out there to the Indian community that there are Hindu Soldiers in the military and that they( and their families) need help transitioning back into civilian society after military life. He was saying that he was going to organize trips to Andrews Airforce Base and the decision making centers of the Pentagon so that I and a group of 30 people, can see a day of their lives. We can visualize what structure the soldiers were once subjected to and we can form ideas about activities on how we can support them.
