2013 – WeReachOut Thanksgiving Event Update
Dear Friends,
We want to take this opportunity to thank you all for your presence and contributions to make this event very successful from the bottom of our hearts. We all enjoyed this event as family and had a good time.
Our special thanks go to all those who rocked the floor with so much energy and those who worked behind the scene.
1. Dorothy, Prabha and Pamela – Thank you so much for taking care of the front desk activities by registering and welcoming our guest to the event.
2. Juliet – Thanks for all your time and effort in the last couple of weeks to present every item in our agenda with a thoughtful messages as an MC of the entire program, it really made the difference.
3. Veera – Thank you so much for saying yes on the spot without any prior notice to conduct a short meditation, it really created positive energy to start the program. Your song touched everyone’s heart…
4. Raja, Arun and Roopa - Thank you so much, we don’t know what else to say, your presence and performance made a difference. This is our first fund raising event in the past 9 years, you are all professional performers and your generous heart to support WeReachOut helped us to fill the hall with enough guests and raise funds to sponsor more deserving students from the next academic year. Thank you so much for sharing God’s given talent to support organization like WeReachOut in Bay Area. You made a huge difference in bridging the gaps (Entertainment) in the prior years.
5. Raja, you wanted to support WeReachOut for a long time in its fund raising efforts, we are glad your availability permitted this time to come together in a very significant way by involving everyone. We are thankful to you for training younger performers and presenting their skills to our audience. Your songs, dance moves got everyone involved on the floor and kept everyone entertained during the entire event. Thank youyou’re your continues support and looking forward to more in our future programs.
6. Arun and Roopa - You are very popular in Bay Area, whenever we watch your performance, our heart always felt that gap in WeReachOut events and always had that longing to fill that gap by getting you invovled in our programs. Finally our wishes came true with you great performers crossing our paths. You amazed the group with a good mixture ofmimicry and songs. We were honored and are grateful to you couples for joining us. We are looking forward to more from both of you in our future programs.
7. Geetha – You rocked as a Stand-Up Comedian, Thank you for starting the wonderful performance by picking your name as the first topic. For those who didn’t make it to the show don't get disappointed by name, Geetha is a male comedian. We were missing these kinds of localized comedies shows in bay area and thank you so much for accepting Johnsons request to perform in this event.
8. Karthik, Anirudh, Janesh, Archita, Ananya and Aarthi – You guys were so pumped up and rocked the stage with so much energy. Your "Kuthu dance steps" made the audience dance. Hats Off to younger generation!! We all enjoyed your performance and looking forward to see more in our future programs.
9. Arumugam – Thanks Aru for your inspiring message about the reality and the individual responsibilities to make a difference in our society. We would like to highlight one of your very thoughtful message for those who cannot make it to this event: Only one out of 100 students is becoming well settled in most cases, we may be that one student reaping the benefits of all the collective effort (our teachers teachings and etc) targeted towards this 100 when we were all in the same boat. So we should feel responsible to do something prudent to at least one out of remaining 99 if you cannot do much for everyone. Also thank you so much for volunteering to take pictures from this event to preserve those sweet memories.
10. Prakash – Thank you so much for your instant take home message from Agaram Foundations work. Just to highlight the message for everyone in our evite: If you help a well deserving student with bare minimum basic needs (Rs.5000), it’s not going to simply stay with that student, they will be using it as a source to help other students. At least we will be planting the seed to grow and make a difference in future. Your message had a positive vibe and made everyone pause for a second to think. Thank you for making us aware of our surroundings.
11. Heroes Comedy Dance - Thanks Lakshmi for this great idea, we all had fun watching Jega as MGR, Veera as Rajini, Ramesh as Kamal, Shankar as Bhagayaraj, Francis as Vijay,Prakash as Ajit, Daya in Daya’s own floating style , Richard as Prabhu Dev and Ramkumar’s (Ramkanth) dance like Vijaykanth. Veera and Ramesh - your moves in those costumes were so fun to watch. We all enjoyed the show, looking forward to more fun in future….
Admin Team Members:
The admin team is so thankful for your support, it’s truly an encouragement for all of us to do better in future.
1. Fr. Stanislaus – Our well wisher, advisor to streamline our operations activities in India towards our mission and a long-term supporter since the beginning of WeReachOut to distribute our sponsorships to deserving students on time.
2. Srinivasan – One of our heartily involved admin team members in India to take of all our sponsorship related activities from collecting well deserving student details/updates and making it available to their sponsors through our portal.
3. Johnson – Our very quiet and famous DJ who made the event gel together with a smooth flow. Also the man behind the creative idea of hosting "Thanksgiving Dinner and Dance" event for our sponsors. He was planning this event for a long time and made it successful this year with all your generous support. The Master Brain presented the overall 10th year Anniversary Celebration plan for next year. We will continue this Thanksgiving Dinner and Dance Fundraiser with all your support going forward.
4. Akhil - A very silent contributor focused on setting up the environment and video capture of the entire event.
5. Marshal & Martin – Focused on the complete event planning and execution from setting up the environment, taking care of the safety, seating arrangements, food and logistics.
6. Ramkumar – Shared a very thoughtful message about “believe in others” from his own experience. Also stressed the point on why we don’t want to miss the opportunity to help someone, just because we think or hear about incidents like many folks are trying to take advantage of people with tender heart.
7. Jerry – Shared a very short and crisp message about the benefits and value of our member’s donation. Also highlighted the points on how your contributions can be doubled with corporate gift and other grants to reach more deserving students.
8. Richard – Talked about what we are thankful for in this thanksgiving season, what kind of opportunities our parents had back in India to make a difference in someone’s life and what’s missing here. Also highlighted our parent unrecognized scarifies and compassion towards others which is the back bone of who we are today by sharing his own experience. Also shared how we can use WeReachOut platform to plant the seed of sharing in the hearts of well deserving students through our sponsorship programs and how that will make a difference.
9. John Durai & Michael Titus – Distributed our appreciation awards to all the performers who made this event so fun filled and successful.
To recap, for many of us its one of the best
Thanksgiving Dinner Event with fun filled events and especially the younger generations stepping up to
carry the same synergy is remarkable.
Some of us shared our own life experience to
highlight WeReachOut's vision.
For the Organization it’s a great accomplishment this year to have your kind presence during your busy weekend schedule. No matter how many times we may say thank you, we feel it will not be enough to compensate your kind heart.
Total fund raised at this event: $4,620.00
Total expenses at the restaurant: $2,120.00
Remaining balance towards 2014 Sponsorships: $2500.00
Note: Our long-term sponsors are still in the process of sending their contributions and some of them are in the process of doubling their contributions through gift mach. So we can definitely expect more to increase the no.of sponsorship next year.
One more important note for those who made a Cash donation at the event, Can you please send your donation details (Name and Amount) to donate@wereachout.org ? We have received the total of $1100 as cash in this event and see $120 extra without any donors name assigned to this amount to update their account. Sorry for this mistake from our end, please help us map this contribution if you donated by cash. No worries for those who made the contribution by checks.
Please visit this URL for the pictures from this event: https://picasaweb.google.com/109345659448048418818/WeReachOut2013ThanksgivingDinnerAndDanceFundraisingEvent
We are working on the video upload, we will send the links to watch important programs from this event after checking with our participants in our newsletter.
Thank you so much for your continuous support and contributions to this reach out program. That’s what is helping us to reach out to more well deserving students from next academic year.
Have a wonderful thanksgiving holidays!
Thank you,
Richard Solomon
On Behalf of WeReachOut Team
(408) 368 7568