COMMUNITY SEVA NEWSLETTER

May/June 2016

“It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.” - Mahatma Gandhi

Community Seva is an organization based on the mantra of selfless service without boundaries. But what are those boundaries? And can the youth of today surpass them? Community Seva believes that any person, despite their age, can make a difference. Involving today’s youth in giving back to the community helps pave a future generation of engineers and doctors and artists who are focused on making the world a better place.

Talk to your children and nieces and nephews and friends about getting involved today. One action can cause a ripple effect. Together, we can make the Bay Area - and eventually even the world - a better place.

LOOKING BACK
at Community Seva's activities since the last newsletter

CARE BAG SEVA

Community Seva is happy to announce the launch of our "Care Bag Seva"

The “Care Bag”, as mentioned in the last newsletter will involve volunteers packing Ziploc bags with daily necessities and distributing them in shelters. These bags will be made in effort to help keep the hygiene of those who live on the streets or in various emergency shelters. Community Seva believes that self care and the ability to receive care helps build someone’s self-worth and reminds both us and them, that those in need are no less people than we are.

The items in each Care Bag have been carefully selected based on research done by Community Seva. Children can help with this Seva as well! Opportunities like these, help the youth of the Bay Area understand the importance and the value of giving back to the community. If you are interested in participating in this Seva or donating, you can find more information at http://communityseva.org/sevadescriptions/.

16,500 meals served!

In addition, Community Seva has been able to serve over 16,500 meals thanks to the help of its growing volunteers. 500+ have been involved in the growth of this organization and the distribution of meals across the Bay Area. Thank you for your participation in this success!

LOOKING FORWARD
Here's what's coming up...

THIRD ANNIVERSARY

Next month will mark the THREE year anniversary of Community Seva! Look out for our next issue that will talking about related news and events.

Volunteer Spotlight

Every month we will be featuring a volunteer and sharing their experience with Community Seva.

This month we talked to Maggie Rangan and her son Vaibhav about their time with Community Seva. Both Maggie and her son have been with the organization since day one. Maggie is an advisory member. Community Seva taught Vaibhav about the food insecurity in the Bay Area, which prompted him to be a part of the organization as well. He started his journey with Community Seva with the brown bag seva. He says, “I am of the opinion that kids can definitely make a difference in the community Any good deed , big or small, makes a difference. A good example is Community Seva’s Brown bag activity. This is an activity for kids where we help pack nonperishable & healthy food in brown bags to be distributed among the needy. Before I volunteered with Community Seva, I thought that helping people get over food insecurity or poverty was an “adult” or government responsibility. Making these brown bags & volunteering in the shelters help me realize that I , as a youth volunteer, can make a difference in the community too!”

Mrs. Rangan shared her experience with Community Seva as something that helped her as a parent. “Absolutely. Making sure our kids developed empathy was very important to me as a parent. Serving the less fortunate helped us cultivate that empathy as a family. Living in the Bay Area, our kids are all quite entitled and volunteering with Community Seva helped me as a mother provide the avenues for my kids to see the real world and understand the different perspectives of life.”

She also shared how Community Seva has impacted the way she thinks about those in need and the effect of her actions. “Community Seva has really helped me open my heart and serve without judgement and I am every grateful for that. One cold winter night, I was out with my family to eat dinner at a downtown San Jose restaurant. The previous night we had served dinner at a local homeless shelter. While walking from our parked car towards the restaurant we had to walk through a dark alley where we saw a homeless person with a cart full of his stuff standing on the sidewalk. My immediate instinct was to pull my kids & purse close to myself. We suddenly heard “Thank you ma'am”. Shocked, I turned back and looked. This man recognized me from the previous night and said that he was at the shelter the previous night and thanked me for tasty dinner the previous night. At that moment, I had mixed feelings of how wrong I was in judging this person and also how a small act of kindness can make an impact. That has been a valuable lesson since and every time we serve, it's important to reiterate to ourselves and other volunteers that these are real people we serve and it’s important to make an impact on them by showing kindness & respect!”