Volunteers of the India Association of New Hampshire worked on the Angel Tree Project during this holiday season. The Salvation Army and the Nashua Children’s Home offer the project under which groups or organizations collect gift items for families and children. 

The association adopted six children from the Home as well as three families from the Salvation Army’s list.  Additionally, in the spirit of the project, the association looked overseas for its gift donation effort. Packages containing personal and health care items were sent to an orphanage, the Mahila Seva Mandal, in Pune, India. Maureen Byrnes, a Brookline resident and an association member, who has worked closely with the orphanage contributed and sent out the materials.  Maureen’s two children Ravi and Vini helped with gift-wrapping.

The Westford Cub Scout under the leadership of Jeyanthi Ghatraju and Pranav Ghatraju led the effort to collect gift items for the Nashua Children’s Home.  Deepa Mangalat led the association’s Youth Group team to collect and deliver gifts to the Salvation Army. 

On December 10, some association Youth Group members,  Amritha Mangalat, Meghna Chandra, Soumya Vajjhala, Rohan Vaswani, and Asish Andhavarapu, got together to wrap gifts for the Salvation Army.

Andhavarapu stated “We all know that there are many people in this world that just don't have enough to get along in life, and they could all use a little something from those who care. With this in mind, we wrapped the gifts just for them.  That right there is a special holiday gift for anyone to cherish for a lifetime.” 

A visit was arranged on Sunday December 17 when these youth accompanied by adult members of the association visited the Nashua Children’s Home.  The Angel Tree project was a success largely due to the participation by the members of IANH family as well as the parents of the Westford Cub Scout Program. 

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