New England Shirdi Sai Parivar (NESSP) celebrated SaiRainBow, it’s annual cultural program at the Collins Auditorium in Andover on Sep. 5, 2009. Kids are the seeds of our future. SaiRainbow program is a platform to motivate and nurture kids of all ages to bring out and showcase their wonderful talents in the areas of music and dance, while providing a bonding experience that will foster positive teamwork and respect for others.  The program also created awareness about NESSP and its activities amongst the audiences.

More than 130 kids ranging from ages 5 to 20 registered to learn dancing with more than 10 Boston area choreographers who graciously volunteered their time to train the kids and they worked through the summer organizing the dance steps and formations and then maturing it for the final performance week after week either at the NESSP Dance Training Hall in Dracut or at the Choreographer’s facilities.

The fun filled evening started at 4 PM and ended with excellent dinner served at end. The program sequence included in all about 18 performances, which were dance and play sequences. There were some spiritual/devotional while some based on Bollywood themes.  The kids looked very cute and well prepared in their lovely colorful costumes. The corridor of the Collins Auditorium was lined with quite a few stalls offering colorful merchandise for sale to create an atmosphere of a multifaceted fair.

Mayor of Lowell City Edward “Bud” Caulfield graced the occasion as the Chief Guest of the evening. Many prominent Boston area guests also graced the event.  Mayor Caulfield had initially planned to stay for about 45 minutes but he and his wife Diane stayed for almost 3 hours and were captivated by the colorful performances and expressed amazement at the coordination of efforts to train more than 100 kids in short time to perform in front of 600-700 audiences. Similar comments were heard from almost everyone as they left after enjoying the performances through the evening.

NESSP was founded in 2006 with a group of 25 families devoted to Shri Sai Baba (Spiritual Saint from Shirdi in Western India) with the idea to spread his universal message of Shraddha (Faith) and Saburi (Patience) in New England area. NESSP is a grass roots down-to-earth volunteer driven organization. Shri Sai temple is operated completely by volunteer families and has experienced strong growth in last 2 years of its operations in Dracut. Some of the organizations with whom NESSP is actively involved in charitable and philanthropic activities are Boston’s Children Hospital, Lowell Homeless Shelter, Lowell Community Hospital, UN Burmese Refugee Group.  Please visit NESSP at nessp.org for more information about it’s activities and mission.

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