Apr-Jun 2019 Newsletter

Sewa International, Atlanta Chapter

Food Drive – Food for the Hungry

“Food for the Hungry” is a monthly event organized in collaboration with the MSG Foundation, a 501(c) (3) organization. The event is held at the Otwell Middle School cafeteria on the third Saturday of each month. It has been about a year since Sewa began partnering with MSG Foundation, and our volunteers and recipients have shown tremendous zeal and enthusiasm in participating in the event. More than 400 people are served each month, and the majority of recipients are Hispanic.  The next events are scheduled for July 20, and August 17.

Sewa encourages volunteers to participate in the event and experience the joy of feeding the needy.

Aspire

The ASPIRE program launched our first year of tutoring at Cumming Elementary School in September 2018.  Our primary objective is to work with first and second grade students on reading, math and STEM subjects. Concurrently, students are provided gym and yoga instruction and learn mindfulness tools and healthy habits.

ASPIRE hosted an end-of-the-year celebration for the Cumming School students on April 27th. We planned fun and interactive market-themed activities to teach the students about money and budgeting, putting their math skills to practice.  Students left with goodie bags of books and pencils.  Both volunteers and students found the year meaningful and were sad to see the year end.  We are looking forward to coming back in the fall. 

 

ASPIRE volunteers and summer interns spent their Wednesday afternoons at Esther Jackson Elementary School in Alpharetta, Georgia.  We volunteered with Project SOAR, a reading program started by Esther Jackson School teachers.  This was a great opportunity for our volunteers to enrich their teaching skills by shadowing the teachers and meanwhile bonding with students from kindergarten to the fifth grade.  

For the upcoming year, we are excited to increase our volunteer commitment with Cumming Elementary School.  We will continue our well established program on a weekly basis.  We will accept more students into the program.  And most exciting, we are starting a “Girls Who Code” club for 3rd grade students.  Another new initiative for the entire school is the launch of a Homework Hotline for afterschool homework assistance.

Blood Drive

Sewa International, a Hindu faith-based, humanitarian, nonprofit service organization, conducted a blood drive on June 2nd in Blackstone, a neighborhood in Cumming, GA. We did this in collaboration with LifeSouth.

The blood drive ran from 11 AM to 5 PM over which blood was collected from 13 donors. The blood for the drive will save 39 local lives. Previously, we were able to save 189 local lives thanks to our 63 donors. Sewa has two more drives planned for 2019. Both of these drives will take place in the same neighborhood.

Chess Tournament

On March 31st, Sewa held its first chess tournament. The tournament was a fundraiser for Sewa International’s Family services. There were about 60 participants and several adult and youth volunteers.

Mrs. Deepa Luthra and Mr. Ganesh Vandana inaugurated the event in a traditional method. There were three categories as well as one winner and four runner-ups per category. The winner of the Unrated category was Ramchandra Nadar. For Rated500, the winner was Chenxiang Xia. For the last category, Unrated1000, the winner was Alex Madden. Congratulations to everyone who participated and a huge thank you to all of the volunteers!

Family Workshops

 

Sewa International has been holding Family Workshops to promote health awareness. We often bring in professionals to spread awareness about certain topics, such as sugar intake. Some Family Workshops are also being done on Facebook livestreams so that the information can reach more people. There are also yoga workshops which are conducted in person. We plan to progress the Family Workshops in the future. Our upcoming workshops are: Salt impacts, Heart health, Women emotional intelligence, Estate will, and SDM (Stop Diabetic Movement).

 

Adopt a Highway

Keep Forsyth County Beautiful and Sewa International – Atlanta chapter recognizes the need and desirability of litter free roads.

The Adopt-a-Highway program has been established for civic and non-profit organizations, and other interested parties to contribute toward the effort of maintaining litter free roads.

Sewa International has adopted one mile on Robinson Road in between Roswell Road and Fullers Park. A group of volunteers go out to the road every three months to keep the road clean and free from trash and litter. The next outing to the road will be on July 28th.

 

 

 

Summer Internship

 

After conducting numerous interviews, the Sewa Summer Internship for 2019 began. One group is tutoring Bhutanese kids in Clarkston, GA. The other group is conducting a survey with Stone Mountain High School to understand students’ perspectives and how to increase participation in extracurriculars and increase the graduation rate. The interns began work on these projects in mid-May. Those tutoring the children from Bhutan have been extremely successful and are experiencing steady attendance. The survey project interns have finished working remotely and are on to the next phase. After several rewrites, they completed the questionnaire and received approval from the principal of Stone Mountain HS. They are now starting the process of collecting data.   

 

 

 

 

Upcoming Events

Run for Sewa

Sewa Atlanta's High School Volunteers organize the Annual 5K run every year in the month July-August. This year the run will take place on August 17th at Newtown Park. All proceeds will go to Camp CADI, a camp focusing to break the silence on child sexual abuse. Please come out to support a great cause.

About Sewa International

Sewa International is a non-profit 501(c)(3) Hindu humanitarian organization running service projects with partner organizations in India, USA and other countries in many areas such as health-care, education, child and women development, refugee support, tribal welfare and disaster relief. Over the last few years, the fledgling Atlanta chapter has helped promote the spirit and joy of giving, volunteerism and selfless service in the community through local community service, fund-raising, and Bhutanese refugee support.

For more information, please visit

Sewa Website   https://sewausa.org/chapter/atlanta/atlanta-overview

Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/atlanta.sewa/