Dear friends,        

My heartiest pranaams to all of you reading this sharing, to all the volunteers of ACT, Mohanji, all the Masters, the omnipresent One.

14th of January was a very special day for me – while all my friends in my home country (Serbia) celebrated the New Year, I too was celebrating, but in a much more rewarding way. It was one of those ‘divine coincidences’ that our date of blanket distribution was fixed for exactly that day (the Sonarpur School was shut a day before, when we initially planned to conduct this event).      

Furthermore, while on my way to Sonarpur School (outskirts of Kolkata) I found out from Meenakshi that Jan 14th is the Hindu New Year as well! All of us were so excited realizing that we are starting New Year with such a nice act as ACT KOLKATA’s Blanket Distribution.    

Meenakshi’s mother, who was visiting her from Delhi, joined us as well, along with our enthusiastic volunteers from ITC Sonar – Snigdha, Mr. Haldar & Javed. I must mention that from the day one we have been receiving great support from ITC Sonar. Mr. Sisir Acharya has done a great job with all the procurement issues.

From the moment we reached the school everything was happening so smoothly. Kids were already waiting for us and very soon we had all our donations (blankets, notepads and pencil boxes) nicely arranged for the distribution – all the children were sitting in front of us so humble and well behaved.  The age group of children at this school is 5-20 years. They have a church as well where they have children from 1 – 3 years old. The school has 81 children and church has 25 children. In total, there were 106 children to whom we distributed the blankets and basic school stationary.Such poor surrounding and so much of love and care in the air – the reason for that is that school is free of cost for all 106 kids, run by limited funds of Dhankehet Manovikas Kendra, which sponsors books and uniforms for children and salaries for 5 teachers. Out of the total 106 children, 23 are with special needs and 25 crèche children – all were overjoyed with our presence and with the gifts. One of the teachers was deeply touched by our help and told us that the last time school has received ANY help was some 3-4 years back when blankets were donated. They couldn’t express all their happiness and gratitude for having us with them.       

Before we started our distribution, kids and their teachers have gifted us a nice performance –they sang 2 songs in English for us. It was so lovely. Hearts of all the volunteers melted… After that, each and every child has left signature on a chart paper which we hanged on a wall low enough that even 3-year-old ones could reach it. Little ones who can’t write as yet scrambled something with love (photos will tell this story more vividly). Later on teachers and volunteers signed as well.     

 This is going to be our New Year’s gift to Mohanji and Ammucare. No artist can create an art peace such as this wall of gratitude and love. One of the teachers wrote in her cute beginner’s English: “We are so happy for Ammuchare Charity Trust”. Two others wrote: “Happy New Year”, so overjoyed for having us with them.

We took a quick round of the school and became speechless.        

 Photo images will tell you all about the classrooms and overall conditions in which these children study. However, nothing stops them from smiling and singing… nothing should stop us from doing the same… Moreover, nothing should stop us from increasing their happiness and helping them as much as we can.        

Thanking once again all the volunteers of ACT Kolkata, I look forward to many more nice initiatives like this one…        

 Love & light,        

Dana     

You can refer to the full article at

http://mohansuniverse.wordpress.com/2010/01/17/act-kolkata-blanket-distr...