JAN 21, 2013 Source: VHPA
It was a foggy morning but that doesn’t deter VHPA vol-unteers and Texans to come in large numbers to celebrate VHPA Kite flying event at George Bush Park. Around 3000 people showed up. People from all communities and regions participated in the event which also marks 150 birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda (one of most admired spiritual leaders of Hindus). The fine tuned planning and strategic management of VHPA Houston team and Gujarati Samaj of Houston paid off, people flow and parking was streamlined and program progressed with success. This is a great pleasure to have many organizations helping and making this a community wide program, specially Gujarati Samaj of Houston for providing Shuttle transportation and Lunch.
On one hand we saw Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of USA (aims to help eradicate illiteracy from rural and tribal India by 2015 and has 34343 teachers, 6,000 voluntary workers world-wide) serving hot tea to audience and volunteers , on other end Gujarati Samaj of Houston (GSH) served hot ‘khichadi’ (Indian Spiced Rice Recipe) to add flavor. Also a booth for Bone marrow donation registration can be seen. Audience enjoyed Indian musical hits, flying kites and pic-nicked with family members. Weather was good with com-fortable tempera-ture.
Anand, who has been living in US since 15 years, said “it a great event and he comes every year with his family and kids, it’s good that event has both Indian made kites and American kites to suit requirement” Susan, a visitor from Louisiana said “I have never seen such big kite flying event and was thrilled” Other organizations who collaborated include Hindus of Greater Houston, Gujarati Samaj of Houston, Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh- Houston, Maheshwari Masabha of North America VHPA Houston thanks all volunteers , audience and allied organizations for making annual Kite flying festi-val a success.
Another event functionality we had this time is VHPA ON SPOT MEMBERSHIP BOOTH—where audience were given real time info on VHPA, VHPA projects, chapters nationally and locally . In the span of four hours 16 new memberships including two five year memberships were created plus 15 pledge for online memberships and a life time. New comers to USA who are first generation Hindus were enthralled after getting educated about VHPA programs and organizations and look forward to join shoulder with one of Americas oldest & prominent Hindu organization with area of involvements and projects suiting youth, working professionals, women and retired Hindus in USA. New members were given complimentary book on ‘Selections from The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda’ by Advaita Ashrama. Around 200 folded flyers of VHPA project SAC—Support a child along with 100+ VHPA quarterly published Hindu Vishwa magazine were also distributed at the event.