With the help of the community, Chinmaya Mission Bston raised over $850,000 at its Annual Diwali Grand Banquet on November 11, 2007 towards the building project.  Gopala Dwarakanatha and Desh Deshpande led the initiative and thanked everyone present for their support.

In addition, festivals are usually occasions organized by communities to celebrate life. It is a special occasion for the people to meet, socialize and have fun together. Diwali is one such festival which all Indians look forward to.
 
Over 250 people participated with agog in the Celebrations of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights at the Chinmaya Mission, Andover, on November 9, 2007. It was a very special evening with Lights, music, Bhajans, sweets, sparklers and welcoming the goddess of Prosperity with Lakshmi puja.

The program commenced with the traditional Bhajans by Mrs.Jeyanthi Ghatraju, who teaches Bharatanatyam at the center and Mrs.Mallika, accompanied by Pranav Ghatraju on the Tabla. They were simple songs expressing the emotions of love for the Divine, getting the audience to the mood of prayer. Pranav's music on the Tabla was amazingly skilled. Brahmacharini Bhamati Chaitanya, the resident Acharya at Chinmaya Maruti gave a brief lecture on the significance of Diwali with anecdotes from Ramayana.

Pundit Srinivasa Sastry together with his son Nagendra Sastry, serving as priests since 2003 at the Chinmaya Maruti center at Andover, brought all the devotees together to establish a relationship with the Goddess by making everyone chant the Lakshmi Ashtothram. Sastryji also performed abhishekam for the deities. Some of the devotees brought in food which was offered to God and later shared by everyone. Children enjoyed the sparklers and thus the evening filled the hearts with fun, joy, peace and fulfillment. The event was well coordinated by Mrs.Shoba Ramapriya, an active member of the Chinmaya Mission, for whom "It's a place that caters Gyana, Bhakthi and Karma,"-- the three spiritual paths namely knowledge, devotion and work.

The center is also a fort for the young Indian-American children to learn Indian culture and heritage, Indian languages, values,music and art through various classes offered almost all days of the week. "There were only about 300 students learning at the center in the year 2003", said Srinivasa Satryji "which has amazingly increased to 1000s now." In order to accommodate more students and to spread the Indian values through more and more families each year, the mission held a successful fundraising banquet on Sunday, November 11, 2007. "We have a dedicated team of volunteers who join hands to get things done for the mission," proclaimed Rakshit Mazumdar of the Chinmaya team and it's very evident that with the great efforts of such people, our culture will be well preserved.

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