Ekal Vidyalaya held its annual fundraiser event at the Best Western Royal Plaza on May 19, 2013.  Over $120, 000 was raised to support one-teacher schools that are run in the remote Indian villages. The organization supports 47,061 schools serving 13, 37, 779 students who would otherwise have no access to education.  

The evening featured a fabulous musical concert by Sanjeevani, a superbly talented Bollywood singer who along with her team of talented musicians kept the audience entertained for a whole ninety minutes. 

The event opened with the lighting of the lamp by Prashanth and Anuradha Palakurthi.  Anuradha the presented a beautiful rendition of Maithreem Bhajata by Shri Chandrashekara Saraswathi – Periaval.  She was accompanied by Shri Dilip Acharya , Shweta Sundar and Nithya Sridhar. 

Monica Gill, as the MCEE welcomed the audience and introduced the singers. After the first musical segment, Bikash Verma presented a short slide show presenting details of the organization. “We would like to reach the goal of creating 100,000 schools by the year 2015 and we need your help for this” said Verma.  

Each Ekal VIdyalaya costs only a $1 a day to run.  While the charitable contributions are used to sustain many of the schools, nearly 20% of the schools are now self-sustaining. “The villagers see the great value of these schools and now have begun to fund it themselves” said Vinod Jhunjhunwala, who is the Vice President of the organization who along with his wife Prabha, donated 25 schools. Prabha is the daughter of Lala Madan Lal Aggarwal, founder of Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation. 

Harish Dang, the nephew of Puran Dang, shared a special message from Puran Dang, chairman of Ekal New England Chapter. Dang CEO Minuteman Group LLC, could not attend the event in person pledged support for 20 schools along with his daughter Rachana Sharma

Ram Nehra, who has been the corner stone of this organization in New England requested the members of the New England community to open their hearts and their purse strings to support the great cause. Sanjiv, son of Ram Nehra pledged support for 14 schools. Another significant donation came from Amar Sawhney who also pledged support for 14 schools.  Anuradha and Prashanth Palakurthi, Ramani Shah Charitable Foundation, Anu & Subra Dravida, Inder Kaul, Gordon Dash JR, Dr. Harshad & Chetna Sangjvi, Indu & Nand Kishore Sharma, Niru & Sudhir Parikh, Kanayo Lal pledged support for  5- 10 schools.