Dear all
WHILE wishing you all a Happy Deepavali,
SEWA wishes to acknowledge the tremendous effort and pains taken by volunteers
in ensuring the success SEWAs food stall in Parramatta Stadium on Oct 11th
during Deepavali Mela.
FIRST, every ones prayers were answered, there was no rain,
the weather was great and the crowds came flocking in. Thanks for all those
prayers.
THE back bone of the event was the support of Annapoorna Restaurant, Subramani and family. Despite his
busy schedule ahead of Deepavali and working all day
at his restaurant Subramani along with Kokila
dedicated the entire day for SEWA stall. The delightful cuisine which was a
treat for all the five senses was planned and prepared by Annapoorna
restaurant.
IMMEDIATELY after coming from a long drive from
THERE are a few whom we take for granted as they are always
there rain, shine or what. Who else but Rajesh could be troubled on Friday
afternoon, Saturday all-day and of course Sunday? Despite undergoing the stress
of moving recently he was there on Friday evening, all day Saturday collecting
the food warmers (the marie),
organising change for nearly 1000 dollars on a SATURDAY MORNING, collecting
banners, running between suburbs. Behind a dedicated and devoted volunteer is a
very stressed spouse. More than Rajesh a bigger
thanks to Uma and his children Supriya and Karthik who certainly miss their quality time with their
father/spouse when SEWA takes over. Over and above this Uma was
physically present at the counter serving the whole afternoon. Rajesh along
with Sridhar were still at it on Monday having taken a day off finding missing
pieces, consolidating loose items and returning hired equipments.
AND there are those who are always there, no matter what,
ever reliable and always cheerful. Despite returning from the Dushera programme previous night at 1.30am was back to at
the crack of dawn to transport materials to the stall. Who else could this be
other than Pradeep? Thanks Pradeep for being there from the freezing
hours of dawn to late at night or should I say to the freezing dawn of the next
day. Thanks to Sanjeev who was dragged away from his other task of going to Shaka to be at the loading dock early in the morning. Sorry
if Sanjeev’s missed his scheduled sewa
at shaka that morning. No, not really. We were glad
he was “here not there”.
ANOTHER such keen volunteer is Karthik,
who has been driving and communicating with all volunteers to put up this show.
He was up early at Annapoornas to load the stuff and
moving to mela and at the stall the whole day.
OBULESU, Srinivasan and Muthukumar,
young volunteers who have taken time off from a busy exam schedule to volunteer
the whole day, no task considered menial, carrying stuff, filling water, putting
up banners, you name it and they did it. I am sorry if you guys didn’t have
anything much to eat. The support and effort you guys from Indian Cultural
Association put in were great. Rohit came in the
afternoon kept replacing volunteers inside the stall whenever needed and
delivered masala tea, rose
milk and Mango lassi. Thanks guys.
AND there was Khannaji who was
sent back many times on his way to the mela, “can you
please collect the mango essence, sorry there is no tea can you go to an Indian
shop and get some tea leaves and oops there is no milk”. He had to be diverted
and retrace his route at least half a dozen times before he was able to reach
the mela and was outside the stall the whole day
using his marketing talents to boost the sales. Jyothiji
devoted her entre afternoon serving inside the stall
and maintaining the cash registry at the end. Soon it became a family affair
when Udhay joined his parents at the helm.
JUST when things were hotting up in the afternoon and the
demand for doses, vadas and samousas began to
multiply entered Kavitha and Jeevan.
Jeevan directly from his tiring work straightaway
took over the chef role providing Subramani his much needed break and the
consumers their much needed dosa. Kavitas
presence at the till constantly keeping a tab on the amount ensured that the
entire amount collected was accounted and tallied accurately at the end of the
day.
ONE may well ask, great but where were the youth, aren’t
they supposed to be helping out, I see only the seniors at the stall while the
youth were enjoying themselves at the mela under the
guise of Hindu Youth Association of Australia. Well the youth did what they
were best at. “Selling
the idea”. The demand for dosas and vadas did not come in by accident. IN an area with over thirty
stalls selling an abundance of original desi food how
come the SEWA stall was the only sell out. We cant
keep a secret any longer. It was the youth who were all over the place
encouraging (we don’t know what means but whatever they did was effective)
patrons to try the delicious dosa at SEWA stall. Their marketing as so effective that we ran out of dosas well before the end of the day. Well done, Kokila, Pooja, Thanvi, Bhavana and Akaknsha. The younger
children ensured a total sell out of snacks and savouries by taking then to the
gallery and selling to patrons waiting for fireworks. Great
work Shravan, Shraddha
& Tanuja. Once again we are very very sorry that you didn’t get to have masala
dosas you wanted.
DESPITE their busy commitments at the Mela
Ramyavaran and Erappa took the time to be present at the stall and Jayaramanji subtly coaxed members of SriOM
care to patronise the food stall.
THE list is endless. There are many well wishers who were
unable to make it on that day but the stall had their good wishes and prayers.
All their direct and indirect efforts are acknowledged and apologies to anyone
who is not listed.
LAST but not least to all the patrons who visited the stall
and patronised SEWA. Thanks a lot. Your effort has ensures that over One Lakh Rupees goes to SEWAs projects in India to help run
schools, provide education to children in remote areas, some of it will also be
used for flood relief rehabilitation in Andhra and Karnataka and to help
celebrate Deepavali with dignity.
NO contribution has been small. Thank you and we look forword
to your patronage in future.
Heartfelt thanks from
The committee and members of SEWA Australia.
PO Box 18, Liverpool, NSW 1871, info@sewainternational.org.au