January 2021, Vol. 4, No. 1

Dear supporters of Sevalaya USA,

Happy New Year! The year 2020 will be remembered for the challenges created by the pandemic which have been felt deeply worldwide. Through this incredible adversity, the strength and resiliency shown by Sevalaya supporters is greatly appreciated.

In 2020, Sevalaya supported 543 students at the Mahakavi Bharathiyar High School. Some of the activities made possible by your support include two

fundraisers to help Sevalaya students get access to technology during the COVID lockdown of schools and two alumni fundraisers that helped set up endowments and smart classrooms. In addition, Sevalaya USA donated items like Ensure, whole wheat pasta, canned vegetables, fruits and sauces, crackers, Brown rice, granola bars, peanut butter, canned salmon and tuna, nuts, cereals, pancake mix, etc. to the Community Services Agency in Mountain View.

We thank the alumni from the 1995 ECE batch of PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore for their generous and thoughtful donation. They celebrated their 25th year reunion by raising funds to support one Smart Classroom (a Smart Classroom includes an ACER Dual Core PC, projector and an interactive board) at the Mahakavi Bharathiyar Higher Secondary School. The alumni group has also set up the following endowments which will provide continuous support to Sevalaya.

• Educational Sponsorship for 3 children

• Living expenses for 2 children

• Sponsorship of dinner once a year

• Living expenses for a senior

In 2020, some of the funds came through fundraisers hosted by Sevalaya supporters. Our thanks to Sundar Vaidyanathan, Sundar Ramanathan and Prema Ranganthan for their Facebook fundraisers. We are grateful to Preethi Srinivas of Google for hosting a fundraiser to raise money to buy Chromebooks and smartphones for the students who do not have access to technology at home. Schools have been closed for almost a year due to Covid-19 and this donation helps students with their distance learning. We would also like to thank her for initiating the revamp of our website.

We appreciate our donor and supporter, Mr. Kathiravan Ezhilmannan, (Prabakar Sundarrajan) who presided online as the chief guest at the Pongal Celebrations at Sevalaya India on January 13, 2021 and gave a humorous and inspiring speech to the students.

Sevalaya USA board members attended the Pongal celebrations virtually and observed the cultural program performed by the students of Sevalaya.

We need your support to continue our work. One easy way to support Sevalaya is to shop on smile.amazon.com. It is the same Amazon you use and the products and services are the same. Go to https://smile.amazon.com/ and select Sevalaya USA from the charity list. Whenever you shop on smile.amazon.com, Amazon donates 0.5% of the price of your eligible AmazonSmile purchases to the charitable organization of your choice.

We are also looking for volunteers to join our team. For additional information, please visit us online at sevalaya.us and facebook.com/SevalayaUSA.

Sincerely, Sevalaya team

Aug 2020, Vol. 3, No. 2

Dear supporters of Sevalaya USA,

The advent of COVID-19 has brought the issues of digital inclusion, food insecurity and personal safety to the forefront. Working with corporate sponsors, Sevalaya has distributed two crore rupees worth grocery kits, sanitation kits, dry rations kits, and masks to vulnerable populations and PPE kits frontline workers. These kits include rice, dhal, cereals, spices, oil, gloves, face masks, sanitizer, N95 masks, non-woven face masks and hand wash liquid.

Schools are closed for in-person learning in Tamil Nadu but the school year has started. Many of the students of Sevalaya do not have access to technology including smartphones, computers or laptops at home. Some parents have smartphones and teachers are able to connect with and teach their students using Skype and WhatsApp. The teachers have created WhatsApp groups for their classrooms and send worksheets on a daily basis to their students. Students complete the same and send them back to the teachers using WhatsApp. Students also send their audio recording, video recording and pictures of their drawings to their teachers. Sevalaya Chennai is requesting the donation of old Smartphones.

Sevalaya thanks alumni from the 1995 Computer Science batch of PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore for their generous and thoughtful donation. They celebrated their 25th year reunion by raising funds to support three Smart Classrooms at Mahakavi Bharathiyar Higher Secondary School. A Smart Classroom includes an ACER Dual Core PC, projector and an interactive board. The alumni group has also set up 4 educational endowments which will provide continuous support to Sevalaya.

Special thanks to InstaGana Live, a California based International community organization that promotes music, for hosting a musical fundraiser for Sevalaya on August 16. In this virtual event, participants from all over the world, including students and senior residents of Sevalaya, sang songs celebrating Indian Independence Day.

We are very excited to announce another ongoing fundraiser. 1995 ECE batch of PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore is celebrating their 25th year reunion by raising funds for Sevalaya.

Students at Sevalaya Mahakavi Bharathiyar Higher Secondary School secured 98% pass results in XII Std. Board Examination. 120 of the 123 students have successfully cleared the finals with excellent marks. Congratulations!

Since the beginning of 2020, Sevalaya USA has supported the education of 330 students and raised $1745 towards COVID relief and $3000 for supporting the senior homes. We would like to thank our donors and supporters.

One easy way to support Sevalaya is to shop on smile.amazon.com. It is the same Amazon you use and the products and services are the same. Go to https://smile.amazon.com/ and select Sevalaya USA from the charity list. Whenever you shop on smile.amazon.com, Amazon donates 0.5% of the price of your eligible AmazonSmile purchases to the charitable organization of your choice.

We are also looking for volunteers to join our team. For additional information, please visit us online at sevalaya.us and facebook.com/SevalayaUSA.

Be well and stay healthy!

Sincerely,

Sevalaya team

Jan 2020, Vol. 3, No. 1

Dear supporters of Sevalaya USA,

Happy New Year! We hope that everyone was able to share the holiday season with family and loved ones. Sevalaya USA is already hard at work for a successful start to the new decade. We start this year with Project Education 2020 where we have committed to supporting 500 students at the Mahakavi Bharathiyar High School. With your support, we feel confident we can achieve our new goal.

In 2018, we had committed to providing full educational support for 400 students studying at the Mahakavi Bharathiyar High School as part of Project Education 2018. Thanks to your support, by the end of the project in October 2019 we have supported 596 students. In addition, we were successful in creating three endowments for a total of $30,000, which helps with the future sustenance of the school.

Board member, Anandi Lakshmikanthan, visited the campus in August 2019 and was able to attend the annual science exhibition. She was impressed and noted “What an amazing effort by teachers and students! The models, posters and presentations addressed the problem of global warming and the need for sustainable growth...The mime performance titled "Say no to plastic" was fantastic. Kudos to the students!” Donor Manickam Dhamodharan visited Sevalaya and “was simply blown away by the passion and dedication shown by everyone there in serving underprivileged. It was a very humbling experience.”

Our donors, Devi and Amudha, visited the Sevalaya campus in December 2019. They met with the head of donor relations, talked to the oldest senior in the senior home, visited the orphanage and community college, and joined the residents for a meal in the dining hall. Devi said that they “were humbled and inspired by the dedication of the staff of the organization. We were literally blown away by the organizations’ extensive activities, dedication of the staff and the beautiful environ.”

In addition, we would also like to thank all our supporters for participating in Sevathon 2019 and for visiting our booth. It was great to meet and connect with our supporters. We had 31 registered participants in the 5K/10K/Half Marathon/Yogathon event. We were one of the winners of Sevathon2019 Spirit Award from ICC Sevathon. In 2019, we also donated blankets, comforters, sheets, and some groceries including coffee and creamer worth $800 to Family

Supportive Housing in San José. Thank you to all the donors who made it possible.

One easy way to support Sevalaya is to shop on smile.amazon.com. It is the same Amazon you use and the products and services are the same. Go to https://smile.amazon.com/ and select Sevalaya USA from the charity list. Whenever you shop on smile.amazon.com, Amazon donates 0.5% of the price of your eligible AmazonSmile purchases to the charitable organization of your choice.

We are also looking for volunteers to join our team. For additional information, please visit us online at sevalaya.us and facebook.com/SevalayaUSA.

Sincerely, Sevalaya team