India Association of New Hampshire (IANH) - a non-profit organization representing Indian Americans living in New Hampshire - has been operational for over 25 years now. Besides providing a platform to showcase their talents in cultural pursuits, education bees and helping create goodwill for Indian American community, it has been deeply involved in various public services activities in New Hampshire. IANH participates in sponsoring and serving at Nashua and Manchester soup kitchens, supporting salvation army, Christmas gift giving etc. On several occasions in past, when Mother Nature has caused disasters both in India and United States, IANH members have come together, to raise funds to help the victims so that they can be brought back to normal lives.

The latest natural disaster has been the hurricanes and floods in fall 2017, that caused extreme damage in Texas, Louisiana and Florida and nearly devastated Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands. Peoples' lives in these regions particularly Puerto Rico have been shattered resulting in shortages of basic amenities like food, clean water, shelter, electricity, and medical facilities. Multi-year efforts are required to restore the lives of people in these affected regions and to rebuild these areas back to normalcy.

IANH started the Hurricane relief fund campaign during the Diwali Festival in October last year and called upon all the attendees of the Diwali program to pitch in for this humanitarian drive as that was the need of the hour. Diwali is a festival of lights, a celebration that symbolizes the prosperity of the entire mankind, and IANH decided to dedicate 2017 Diwali Festival to helping the disaster-struck regions. The campaign was very successful, and we were able to raise about 3000 dollars. The Indian American community wanted to extend their help in this hour of need, and IANH was the best platform for them, to achieve that. The next big challenge was to find the right charity to donate the money, so that it reaches the neediest. We were looking for charities with minimal operational and administrative cost so that most of the money could be used for those in need. After intensive research we decided to proceed with a local charity at Nashua, New Hampshire called Southern New Hampshire Health (www.snhhealth.org). SNH Health was leading the effort to support Ryder Hospital (supportryder.org) - a devastated hospital community in Humacao, Puerto Rico. When, Hurricane Maria made a landfall in September 2017, Ryder Hospital's roof was torn off and they lost almost everything from the storm. SNH Health assured us that 100% of the donated funds will go directly to supporting Ryder Hospital with essential medication, medical supplies, surgical equipment and more. Our executive team members coordinated with Dr. Stephanie Wolf-Rosenblum, Vice President, Development and External Affairs. We met her and her team at Southern NH Hospital at Nashua, NH on January 25, 2018 to discuss their initiative and donate $3000 on behalf of India Association of NH to support their humanitarian efforts with the Ryder Hospital in Humacao, Puerto Rico. It was a great opportunity for the two organizations SNH Health and IANH to come together and be partners in this humanitarian effort in Puerto Rico.

Picture: IANH Executive Committee Members with Dr. Wolf-Rosenblum

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