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Art of Living - IAHV Fundraiser: A short report

For the past few months Art of Living and IAHV volunteers in Michigan were actively raising fund for the One World Family Fund. One World family Fund: is one of the largest global humanitarian projects ever undertaken by the Art of Living Foundation. This consolidated fund will be used to support Art of Living's internationally acclaimed educational and humanitarian services, and social programs.

The Event: In Michigan, we have conducted a fundraiser event featuring some of the best talents in classical dance and music. On January 21st Saturday evening, we had an Indian classical jugalbandi (duet). Jayashankar Balan, an Indian classical exponent played violin in Carnatic style while Usha Srivastava played Sitar in Hindustani style. They were joined by Vinod Sitaraman in Mridangam and Sachin Chitnis in Tabla. Together, they made an impressive performance to a cheering audience of about 100 people. This was followed by a brief introduction to the Art of Living Foundation by Deepika Desai, one of the key organizer and teacher of Art of Living in the Midwest USA. Following the introduction and a brief dinner break, Shrutivandana Sharma, a graduate student of University of Michigan and a talented Classical dancer performed two pieces of Bharatanatyam. Following this one of the Art of Living volunteer in Michigan and a talented musician himself, Brian Kaldahl performed several of his songs in western style. All theperformers were felicitated by our senior members and highly appreciated the display of their talent to serve a humanitarian cause. Jodi Carlson was generous to provide us with her public address system and sharing her experience in organizing fundraising events.

Through this event we could raise a total sum of $2292.00. This is only a beginning, a warm up for a team of dedicated volunteers. We are planning to organize many such events to increase the awareness and motivate people to do seva.

Use this opportunity: The fundraising is an ongoing process and you can make contributions any time either online or through our local volunteers and be a part of this great effort. We also request you to support us during fundraising events in future at different locations in Michigan. There are people who may want to contribute generously towards the One World Family fund, but missed the opportunity to attend the above event. We welcome all of you to make donations online (http://events.artofliving.org/oneworldfamilyfund/donations.php) or you can donate through our local team. All donations are tax exempted in USA.

Fundraising for Silver jubilee celebrations: We would like to thank all of our members who donated generously towards funding individuals to attend the Silver Jubilee Celebrations at Bangalore, India. One of our key volunteer was funded almost fully, and two volunteers were funded partially. Keep up the seva spirit. Keep doing seva.

Where do we go from here?
Goal for 2006:

Art of Living in association with IAHV has already adopted 25,000 villages worldwide for all round transformation. In the coming five years we are planning to adopt 100,000 more villages. This is a challenging task and one of the biggest project ever undertaken by IAHV and Art of Living. As a part of this effort, we, the Michigan group are planning to raise fund through 2006. Our target for 2006 is $50,000. Donations to Art of Living and IAHV are tax exempted in USA.
We are also planning to adopt 10 villages in India and work at the grass root level to help people find strength in themselves and use it constructively.