The India Society of Worcester is excited to announce the launch of an activity that has been several years in the making : The expansion of our beloved India Center ! It is the culmination of the last 5 years of work and the start of what we hope will be a new chapter for this great organization.
The India Society Executive Board, along with the India Center Expansion and the Fundraising Committees, is proud to announce the launch of our Capital Campaign for India Center !
With this planned expansion, India Center will be a community center, a hub where the Indian American community congregates, and a foundation for India Society’s community engagement efforts for the community at large. We envision multiple activities with diverse age groups, both scheduled and spontaneous take place at the same time, giving the community the ability to strengthen its network.
India Pavilion: The center will feature an expanded welcoming atrium. which will become a showcase for Indian culture. Artifacts and handicrafts will offer visitors an opportunity to learn about the rich cultural heritage. This space also becomes the hub where families and friends meet as each member scatters throughout the center to engage in various activities.
School: The expanded center will allow the language and cultural school to run on a single day – with a joint assembly and common cultural activities that will foster inter-lingual and cross-cultural exchanges. We also envisage an expanded portfolio of education activities for children including STEM, public speaking and personality development & career development programs.
Youth: India Youth group will be able to further consolidate its mission of personality development and community engagement for youth aged 12 –18. Dedicated spaces, available games and sports facilities will enable the India society to become a hub for unscheduled meetups and foster building of a peer network that will stay with them for life.
Sports: A set of sports facilities will offer room for popular outdoor sports that will be targeted to many age groups. These include a volleyball and badminton court.
Seniors A dedicated space for seniors to enjoy a game of cards, a board game, read a magazine, watch a movie or just catch up with friends over a beverage.
Crisis Assistance: A new dedicated office space with regulatory compliant storage, will provide a platform for the crisis committee to increase the amount of services that we are able to offer.
Free Health Stop: The long running free health stop will also have dedicated space with regulatory compliant storage for medical records and equipment. The expanded space will also allow the health stop to increase the number of patients seen.
Wellness: Yoga, meditation and other wellness related programs on a regular schedule.
Activities for Young families: We envisage growing the portfolio of activities to include programs targeted at families with very young children. There is an under-served need to provide a networking and community for young mothers with pre-school children including some early childhood programs.
Professional Development: Another underserved need in the local community is Professional development and networking activities for working professionals and entrepreneurs. The India Society is currently looking into expanding partnerships with other organizations to enhance programming in this space including Seminars, networking events and career counselling.
Arts and Crafts, Performing arts: the flexible spaces will allow partnering with local teachers to offer spaces for music, dance and arts education. One of the rooms will feature sinks and facilities for supporting activities such as painting, sculpting, robotics etc.
Outdoor Courtyard: The outdoor courtyard will offer a connected outdoor space that can be used as overflow for larger events in good weather
About the Building
The expansion will add over 4,000 sq.ft. to the building as detailed in plans on page 2.
- A beautiful new expanded entrance with cathedral ceilings will become the new entrance space, called the India Pavilion
- Existing kitchen will be moved to an expanded kitchen.
- An adjoining storage room will provide storage for spare tables and chairs from the current main hall
- The main community center wing will feature 10 rooms, with 12-foot ceilings and configurable partition walls that will provide flexibility of configuration for events.
- Rooms will be designed for operational needs including storage & AV needs.
- Outdoor courtyard will offer overflow for main events
- Outdoor sports area featuring Volleyball & badminton courts.
Building Committee update
The Expansion committee is chaired by Mr. Rajiv Dayal. Members of this committee are Mr. Rajit Seth, Mr Raj Melville, Mr Sanjay Shah, Mrs Neena Mohanka, Mrs. Priya Rathnam, Mr Puneet Kohli and Mr. Ashish Cowlagi.
After extensive research design and a competitive bid process that included respected building organizations in the region, we are excited to announce that the committee has selected the firm of F.W.Madigan as our construction manager.
We will begin zoning and permitting approval process with the town of Shrewsbury starting January.
Finally - the construction manager we have chosen will work with us to refine our design ( currently about 30 % complete) over next 3 months and we expect to sign a construction contract in the spring with ground breaking sometime in April. Currently, we estimate the cost of the project to be in the $1.4 M range.
For details, please reach out to Rajiv Dayal, or attend our General body meeting on January 27th .
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