Since inception, The India Association of New Hampshire is committed to serving for the community to help create a better tomorrow through their various public service programs.
Last year IANH for the very first time participated in the adopt-a-family program of the Salvation Army of Nashua located at 1 Montgomery Avenue. The IANH Public service committee members Mrs. Barinder Ahluwalia, Mrs. Maureen Brynes and Mrs. Deepa Mangalat along with the youth group volunteers contributed their time and efforts to collect, wrap and deliver gifts to the Salvation Army on December 11,2007. They also presented them gift certificates to cover the cost of food and shoes.
The association has also adopted six children from the Nashua Children's Home and started the Angel Tree Program, encouraging the community to contribute to the children at the Home. The Cub Scouts of Westford, Diane Avery, Pranav Ghatraju, Matty Romano, Geoffrey Thomas, Ben Weaver, and Austin Xu under the leadership of Jeyanthi Ghatraju sponsored all the gifts for the Nashua Children's Home, as a part of the association's Angel Tree Program.
The youth volunteers of IANH take turns in helping the public service committee while keeping up their academic commitments. Rohan Vaswani, Anjali Krishnaswamy, Akash and Aishwarya Ravi, Amritha and Anjana Mangalat, Lasya Thilagar and Anju Balaji contributed their time in wrapping the presents for the children at the Home this time.
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony", said Gandhiji and the association's selfless efforts definitely brought happiness to those children at the Home.
IANH public services also include their lunch and dinner services to the guests at the Nashua and Manchester soup Kitchens. On Sunday, December 16, 2007, despite the heavy snow storm with seven inches of snow on the streets, IANH volunteers Sai and Ramya Krishna, Prithvi and Kala Kumar, Raj and NarinderJain, Ravi Datla, Anindita and Alappatt Joby helped to prepare and serve hot lunch to the guests at the Nashua Soup Kitchen. The team arrived promptly at 8.30 am and served a delicious, healthy meal that included lentil soup and Ziti, to over forty guests at 11.30 am. The guests were appreciative of the service rendered by the NH Indian American community in spite of the inclement weather. The volunteers closed the facility at 1.30 pm after clean-up. IANH is the member of Nashua Soup Kitchen's "Champions in action" team. The next service of IANH at the Nashua Soup Kitchen is scheduled on Sunday, February 17, 2008.
Those who are looking for a way to serve the community, please join the association's public service team. Please send your contributions to vandana@ianh.org .

|