Anand Charity Blog

Progress in Project Krishna

2008-09-29T22:35:00.000-07:00

We are excited to report the progress of the construction of toilets for Sri Krishna Middle School in Tamil Nadu. Construction began on September 14th as planned and the foundation has been laid. The walls have been raised and soon, the exterior work will also be completed. The construction is scheduled to complete by October 29th provided the monsoon does not hinder the progress and the toilets will be handed over to the school management by November 7th.

We would like to share some pictures sent by Prof. Kamakoti, who is co-ordinating the construction in India.

Project Oorani

2008-09-15T21:17:00.000-07:00

An "Oorani" is a village tank or pond used for harvesting and storing rainwater. Anand Charity is privileged to join hands with DHAN foundation to construct an Oorani in the village of Borajguda of the Adilabad district in Andhra Pradesh. The village comprises of 50 families whose members travel for around four hours to fetch potable water. The villagers are optimistic that an Oorani harvesting water along with the regular household water filters (bio-sand filters) would immensely relieve their hardships. The Borajguda residents are contributing 1/4th of the total project cost (USD$1250 out of USD$5000) establishing their commitment to maintaining the pond and sustaining the project's vision.

The project will be executed under the leadership of Ms. Raghini from Dhan Foundation and is expected to be completed by September 2008. An Anand Charity volunteer will monitor the progress of the construction of the Oorani on a periodic basis.

Healthcare in India is one of Anand Charity’s focal interests. It is our belief that projects such as this would have a grassroots impact there. Anand Charity is proud to take a step in the right direction. If you would like to extend your assistance to Anand and DHAN with the Oorani project and other similar ventures, please donate here.

Anand Charity at Borajguda:

The aim of this project is to construct an Oorani with bio-sand filters in the village of Borajguda in Andhra Pradesh

The project will be executed with the help of DHAN foundation under the leadership of Ms. Raghini.

The project is expected to be completed by September 2008.

A volunteer will monitor the progress of the construction of the Oorani on a periodic basis.

Please donate generously to this project here.

Rang Tarang 2008

2008-09-14T08:24:00.000-07:00

The India Culture Club at QUALCOMM Incorporated in San Diego organized its annual cultural festival, Rang Tarang, on 7th September 2008. Some of the proceeds from the show would be donated to Anand Charity. The event was a huge success and the auditorium was full with hardly any place to sit. One of our volunteers, Kapil, who was at the show thoroughly enjoyed it. Anand Charity's efforts and projects were described to the audience.

We would like to thank the India Culture Club and QUALCOMM Incorporated for believing in us and helping us take bigger steps towards our charitable efforts.

News@Anand - Volume 1, Issue 2

2008-07-21T09:56:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Anand Charity!

Every quarter, we bring out our newsletter to our donors to update you about our work in the last three months. We have made tremendous progress in the last quarter and have some exciting projects/events lined up for the next three months. We would like to thank you for supporting our cause.

Please click here to read more about our efforts in the second edition of our newsletter.

We welcome your comments about our newsletter and about our work in general. Please feel free to contact us at contact@anandcharity.org. One of our volunteers will personally respond to you.

Thank you for your support to Anand Charity and we look forward to your continued support.

Regards,
Anand Charity team

Project Nanubhai

2008-07-06T07:36:00.000-07:00

We are very proud to announce our third project - Project Nanubhai in collobaration with the Nanubhai Educational Foundation. Please watch the video below to see the quality work being done by this wonderful organization. More details below from our project page.

Total Grant Request: US $5000 (Rs. 2,00,000)
Project Location: Kadod, Gujarat

"Education should be so revolutionized as to answer the wants of the poorest villager" - Mahatma Gandhi.

No saying could be more apt for India today. As we make rapid strides in economic growth and talk proudly about the increasing opportunities for Indian youth- one cannot but stop to ask the question- which youth get which opportunities?

Nanubhai Educational Foundation has addressed this pertinent and important issue by focusing on under funded public schools in Gujarat that cannot impart the level of education private schools can offer. The three-fold vision of this organization- English, technology and capacity building targets the areas students need to be well equipped with to taste success in the increasingly globalized world.

Anand Charity joins hands with Nanubhai Educational Foundation to support this noble cause.

Anand Charity at Project Nanubhai

The grant from Anand Charity will enable underprivileged students from Standards 4 through 12 to benefit from English and IT enrichment programs.

English program- One hour of English education per day (taught by two year long Princeton-in-Asia fellows) aiming to improve the overall proficiency and prepare these students for the Cambridge English ability exam
IT Program- One hour of basic computer education per day (taught by contract teachers hired by the school and PiA teachers and interns) aiming to equip these students with essential skills.

This philanthropic venture is a fruition of our goal- ‘Deep fulfillment for the giver and a bright future for the recipient’.

Please donate generously to this project here.

Looking for a volunteer interested in SEM/SEO

2008-07-02T21:47:00.000-07:00

Anand Charity is a proud recipient of a Google Adwords grant. This grant has a lot of potential and we are looking for a volunteer to manage our grant effectively. We are looking for a volunteer who is

Passionate about our cause
Interested in Search Engine Marketing/Search Engine Optimization.

The responsibilities of the volunteer will include:

Designing relevant ads using the grant.
Creating multiple campaigns targeting different donors/projects/occasions.
Periodically analyzing the effectiveness of our ads and presenting the findings to the rest of the team.
Using the feedback to optimize our strategy.
Working with various teams in the organization.

If you are interested in helping us out, please email us at volunteer@anandcharity.org

Project Krishna

2008-06-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

We are excited to announce our second project - Project Krishna! We named the project after the school we plan to support. Here's more information about the Project from our project page.

Imagine a school where the children have no sanitary facilities. That’s the plight of a Government aided school named Sri Krishna Middle School in Tapplampuliyur, Tiruvarur District in Tamil Nadu. There are about 440 students in this school, including 200 females students. More than 90% of the students come from families well below the poverty line. The students cannot afford any fees and the schools functions with government aid. The school was recently rebuilt but the old toilets have gone into disuse. The teachers of the school use the houses of nearby villagers. Students, especially girls above ten years, drop-out because of the lack of proper toilets in the school.

Anand Charity at Project Krishna

The aim of this project is to rebuild the toilets for Sri Krishna Middle School for boys, girls and teachers.
The project will be executed with the help of ASHA Chennai and Rotary Chennai under the supervision of Prof. Kamakoti, IIT Madras.
A volunteer will also be monitoring the progress of construction on a daily basis until completion.
A civil contractor certified by the government will also inspect the quality of construction.
This project is part of our healthcare initiative. Prevention is better than cure. By maintaining proper sanitation and a clean environment, the spread of diseases can be curbed.

A successful end to our first event

2008-06-03T08:10:00.000-07:00

Anand Charity tied up with OneClickTennis to conduct our first event, Spring Masters Charity Tennis Tournament and the event was a great success. We had more than 110 players participating and we had three sponsors supporting us - ZoomIn, Chugh Firm and State Bank of India.

We had a great picnic last Sunday where we distributed the prizes for the tournament and conducted a few fun contests for our guests. The prizes for these contests were sponsored by stores and restaurants in the Bay Area. Even though it was out first event, we were able to raise a good amount of money from the tennis tournament and the contests during the picnic. All the money raised will be going towards our projects in India.

Here are some photographs from our picnic on June 1st.

We hope to conduct more events like these in the future and hope to receive your continued support.

Tennis Tournament Update

2008-05-31T10:02:00.000-07:00

We are nearing the end of our Spring Masters Charity Tennis Tournament. Tomorrow, we will hold our picnic to celebrate the tournament and award the prizes to the winners. The picnic is going to be held at Las Palmas Park in Sunnyvale. Come and enjoy food, free tennis clinics, and other attractions. We will also be conducting a few competitions like speed serve contests to fund raise for Anand Charity.

We will start around 10:30 in the picnic area accessible from Spinosa Dr (off Remington Ave.) and the tennis events will take place between 11:30 and 1:30 on courts 13, 14, and 15.

Our special thanks to our sponsors - ZoomIn, The Chugh Firm, State Bank of India, California.

We would also like to thank the following restaurants for helping us with the prizes and picnic arrangements - Taste Buds, Hot Breads, Spice Hut and Swetka's Tennis Shop.

News@Anand - Our newsletter

2008-04-20T10:01:00.000-07:00

We are proud to announce that we are launching our newsletter News@Anand. The quarterly newsletter will aim to provide information about our projects, the impact we are creating in India and our fund-raising events. Anand Charity values transparency and periodic communication with our donors and we hope that we will be able to achieve both through our newsletter. A million thanks to all our volunteers who have put a lot of effort in creating the newsletter.

Please click here to read the first edition of our newsletter.

We welcome your questions and comments about our newsletter and about our work in general. Please feel free to contact us at contact@anandcharity.org. One of our volunteers will personally respond to you.

Thank you for your support to Anand Charity and we look forward to your continued support.

Anand Charity @ Bay Area Ugadi Festival

2008-04-06T10:58:00.000-07:00

Anand Charity was present at Bay Area Telugu Association's 2008 Ugadi Festival yesterday. A big thanks to BATA for letting us setting up a booth and helping us spread the word to the Bay Area Telugu community. We had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people about Anand Charity and let them know about the good work we are doing. We will continue to take part in such events in the Bay Area in the coming months.

A big thanks to our volunteers who were present at the booths and also to the volunteers who worked behind the scenes to get everything ready for the show.

If you are interested in putting up a booth in your town at any Indian festival or gathering in your community, please contact us.

Here are some photographs from yesterday's event (Slideshow on zoom.in):

Balyhoo!

2008-04-02T21:30:00.000-07:00

Anand Charity relies on the efforts of our volunteers and recently, we have received a lot of help from one such volunteer, Karthik SS. Karthik runs his own ad agency in India - Balyhoo! (http://www.balyhoo.in). He is really talented and has designed our tennis tournament flyer and banner for our publicity events. You can see his amazing designs below.

2007 Annual Report

2008-04-01T08:52:00.000-07:00

We have made public our 2007 Annual report on our website. 2007 was an important year for us where we accomplished significant groundwork. Here are the key accomplishments for 2007 :

Anand Charity incorporated in State of California (January)
First meeting of Board of Directors held and the officers (President, Secretary and Treasurer) elected (March)
Anand Charity granted 501(c)(3) federal tax exemption status (June)
Anand Charity granted California State tax exemption (September)
Invited grant proposals from charity organizations in India (December)
Recruited more volunteers

2008 has been a great year so far with big steps forward. We are excited!

Registration for the tennis tournament begins!

2008-03-31T15:26:00.000-07:00

Hello Tennis Enthusiasts,

Registration for Anand Charity's first public fundraising event, Spring Masters Charity Tennis Tournament, has started. To register for this event, please visit http://www.oneclicktennis.com.

OneClickTennis.com offers a convenient way to schedule your matches at the times most convenient to you and you report the results of the games after they are done. The matches are going to be played in the San Francisco Bay Area. Registration for the tournament ends on April 12th and the matches begin on April 14th.

So far, we also have two sponsors for the tournament. ZoomIn is a Gold Sponsor for the tournament and The Chugh Firm is a Silver sponsor. Thank you, ZoomIn and The Chugh Firm!

To see our flyer for the tennis tournament, please click here

Anand Charity at Bay Area Telugu and Tamil festivals

2008-03-18T22:44:00.001-07:00

Anand Charity will be present at the Bay Area Telugu Association's (BATA) Ugadi Festival on April 5th and Bay Area Tamil Manram's Chitthirai Kondattam on April 20th. Both, Bay Area Telugu Association and Bay Area Tamil Manram, were kind enough to let us setup a booth at their popular new year celebrations. Each of these festivals attract more than 2000 people each year.

We are very excited about the opportunity to showcase Anand Charity's work to the Bay Area Indian community and we are putting our best foot forward to reach out to potential donors and volunteers.

A big shout out to all the Anand Charity volunteers who are working hard towards these events.

More new volunteers including two in India

2008-03-16T11:28:00.000-07:00

Since we have started our publicity and fundraising, our team has also been growing strongly. In the last couple of weeks, we have had three new volunteers joining Anand Charity - Mrinalini, Deepak and Ram.

Mrinalini is based in India. She has completed her masters in Communication and she is planning to do research in Developmental Communication. She sees herself as a social worker in the future. She is going to help Anand Charity with the planned newsletter and is going to be our editor-in-chief.

Deepak is based in Chennai and is working on a cool media startup in Chennai. He has been meaning to help charities for a long time and he sees Anand Charity as a perfect avenue. He is going to be the liaison between Anand Charity USA and the organizations in India. He is going to be heading our project coordination in India and will recruit more volunteers in India in the near future.

Ram is a certified CPA and CA. He will be lending his expertise for our accounting needs and our filings with IRS. Ram is currently a Senior Manager at a Big 4 accounting firm and he currently lives in Chicago. He is a very busy man and it is great that he is giving us his valuable time.

Another big donation!

2008-03-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

Today, we received another big donation ($1001) towards Project Umang. It was an anonymous donation and the entire Anand Charity team thanks the donor for his generous contribution. The donor was referred to us through Facebook's Causes Application. If you are on Facebook, please help us spread the word by inviting your friends and family to the cause.

It has been very encouraging to see the donations pouring in over the last few weeks and we understand how much responsibility that puts on us. We assure our donors that we will exceed their expectations and do our part in helping folks back in India.

Thank you, Anonymous Donor!

2008-03-07T06:56:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, we received a large donation of $2500 from an anonymous donor. Thank you, Anonymous Donor, for believing in us and helping us do what we aim to do.

This does not lessen the contributions that other donors have made in the last few weeks. We have received an exciting response - many people have subscribed to recurring monthly donations with corporate matching and others have made significant donations. Together, we can make a difference to deserving lives in India! We will keep you updated with our progress frequently.

For those of you who would like to donate, please visit our page here. We guarantee that your money will be used in an effective way and that it will be a rewarding and satisfying experience for you.

Inviting Sponsors for Spring Masters Charity Tennis Tournament

2008-02-25T08:08:00.000-08:00

On behalf of the 2008 Spring Masters Charity Tennis Tournament, I am writing to invite you for participation as an Event Sponsor. The tournament serves as a platform for players to compete with fellow tennis enthusiasts and all the proceeds of the tournament will be directed to us – Anand Charity. The event is going to be held in the San Francisco Bay Area with most players from the South Bay. The organizers of this tournament, OneClickTennis.com now have more than 2400 registered and active members in the Bay Area. The tournament, which is scheduled to take place between April 14^th and May 25^th, 2008 has been a raving success in the past drawing more than 200 competitors in each of the 4 tournaments held in 2007. We are going to conduct a post-tournament picnic in Sunnyvale on June 1st to celebrate the success of the tournament. Sponsors will have the opportunity to showcase their company's presence even during the picnic.

We are certain that the event will provide a multitude of benefits including the opportunity to enhance your company’s presence within the South Bay Community. Please contact us for the sponsorship packages offered by Anand Charity.

We look forward to your participation in the Spring Masters Charity Tennis Tournament. If you have any additional questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact us via e-mail

Sincerely,

Anil Goteti

President

Anand Charity

Overwhelming response and two new volunteers

2008-02-18T20:22:00.001-08:00

We kick started our fund raising last week - on February 14th. In the last four days, we have received an overwhelming response from our donors, friends and family. A lot of you have contributed and we cannot express enough thanks to you. We still have a long way to go and would like you to continue to spread the word about Anand Charity.

We would also like to welcome our two new volunteers - Vijay from the Bay area and Kapil from San Diego. Our thanks to both for volunteering with Anand Charity. This organization functions because of the generous time we get from our volunteers. For those who would like to help us, please contact us at volunteer@anandcharity.org or visit our Volunteer page.

Monthly Donations

2008-02-15T08:03:00.000-08:00

We have a tie-up with Groundspring.org for our donations. Groundspring.org provides an easy interface for our donors to automatically make donations every month. This is a convenient way to make regular contributions to our efforts without having to remember each month to donate.

Anand Charity relies on donors like you for our projects and we encourage all donors to setup monthly donations. Here's our donation link.

Anand Charity on Facebook!

2008-02-13T10:31:00.000-08:00

If you are a Facebook user, you can find us here. Once you enter our page on Facebook, you will be able to share our cause with your friends and recruit members. This is a great way for you to contribute to our publicity effort. All it takes is a click and a personal message to people in your network to join our cause. The top recruiters for the cause will receive a special mention on the Facebook page.

New Project Update: Umang

2008-02-12T12:48:00.000-08:00

Anand Charity's first project is going to be the funding of a vocational-cum-work training center at Umang, an organization in Jaipur which rehabilitates mentally and physically disabled people. Umang has been operational for several years and we are proud to be one of their donors. With Anand Charity's funds, Umang is going to help change the lives of several individuals who at present are perceived to be a burden on their families.

One of our volunteers, Shankar, even had an opportunity to visit the organization in Jaipur and he was extremely touched by the warmth shown by the people at Umang. To see some photographs from his site visit or for more information about the project, please visit our Umang project page.

New website design!

2008-02-11T10:45:00.000-08:00

We have an exciting new design for our website - thanks in large to the efforts of our volunteers, Anuj and Varun. For the new layout, we have adopted an open-source template from the web. We hope that you will enjoy the new design.

The new layout also allows us to post our blog messages easily on the website and the most up-to-date messages will be displayed.

Thank you, Anuj & Varun!

Welcome to Anand Charity's blog!

2008-01-22T07:29:00.000-08:00

Keeping up with the blogmania and the ease of communicating with our donors, we have started our very own "Anand Charity" Blog!

Through this blog, we will be communicating with our donors about our fund raising events, grants and charity activities in India. We also would like to post messages about individuals seeking help after verifying the credibility of such posts.

We will be transferring all our old posts in our "News" Section to this blog.