To raise awareness of Sankara Nethralaya in Detroit Metro area, Michigan, a group of volunteers organized a 5K Walk on Sunday, September 10th, 2023.
The event was held at the ITC Community Sports Park in Novi, which had beautiful and wide walking trails, with picturesque trees around the park. The event was coordinated and organized by SNUSA Michigan Trustee Prathima Kodali and volunteers Sai Gopisetty, Theja Jettipalle & Vamsi Gopisetty.
The team displayed all philanthropic activities and statistics about Sankara Nethralaya on poster boards around the event area, so the participants get a glimpse of the impressive facts about this organization that is implementing noble mission of eradicating preventable blindness in India.
Sankara Nethralaya (SN) was founded in 1978 by Padma Bhushan awardee Dr. S.S. Badrinath with the objective of providing world class eye care for free to the poor and at an affordable price to others.
At the beginning of the event, Prathima and Sai talked about the SNUSA activities as the fund-raising arm of Sankara Nethralaya and requested participants to donate generously. They explained and brought awareness to the MESU camps and their importance especially in the rural areas of India. They also thanked the participants, donors, and sponsors of the event.
This first event in Detroit on behalf of SNUSA was free and had a goal of raising awareness among the community in Michigan. The event was successful and raised significant amounts for SNUSA.
110 participants registered for the event and participated. Numerous others donated through the link that was socialized through local community events and emails.
Delicious breakfast was provided by OM Group/ Dunkin Donuts for the participants to enjoy. Raghu Ravipati flagged off the walk at 10AM.
The following sponsors have contributed to SNUSA through the event: HCL Global Systems Inc., Prasad Chukkapalli, Digital Terrain Inc., OM Group, Prasad Katragadda, Namaste Flavors, Kutumba Rao Ravi, Rao Gari Vindu, SPARC Arena, MCM Quality Systems, Detroit Mega * Fans, Balaji Yadam, and Sridevi Gogineni.
Prizes were given out to the top finishers of the Walk in Men, Women and Children categories. Joe Peddiboyina, Praveen Jettipalle and Rajani Bethini presented the gifts on behalf of the sponsors MCM Quality Systems, SPARC Arena, and Namaste Flavors respectively. The following people won the gift cards by coming at the top – Ramakrishna Atluri, Nandini Akkaraju, Maktar Shaik, Uma Jagadeesan, and Varun Talluri.
The following volunteers helped with various aspects of the event, like registering the participants, posting the signs, recording pictures & videos of the event, picking up food, distributing water to participants etc.: Praveen Jettipalle, Roja Koduri, Rajani Bethini, Viraja Gopisetty, Jithendra Bondada, Vikas Kodali, Vinitha Kodali, Raghu Ravipati, Venkat Kodali, Rohan Jettipalle, Neerad Uppalapati, Sirisha Uppalapati, and Sobha Kodali.
Special thanks are due to the Sankara Nethralaya USA team: President Bala Reddy Indurti for his guidance, EC members Moorthy Rekapalli, Krishnaraj Bhat, Banu Ramakrishnan, trustees Anand Babu Dasari, Raj Aila & Vamsi Krishna Eruvaram for logistics, and Deendayalan & Theagarajan for technical help.
President Emeritus SV Acharya congratulated the Detroit team for the successful 5K walk.
The weather was pleasant and enabled this to be a memorable fun-filled family event.
Sankara Nethralaya USA changed the bylaws and announced the following 3 members Board of Advisors. padma Bhushan prof Jag Sheth, Past President Leela Krishnamurthy, and senior Board of Trustee Dr. Raj Modi.
Inspired by a speech by Pontiff of Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt he attended in 1974, Dr. S. S. Badrinath founded Sankara Nethralaya in Chennai 06th September 1978 with the sole objective of providing world class eye care, free to the poor and affordable price to others.
Sankara Nethralaya (SN) is a not-for-profit charity organization providing ophthalmic (eye) care throughout India. For the last four decades, SN has treated millions of patients. Nethralaya also holds eye camps, school screenings and eye bank.
Please visit the website to support the noble cause: www.sankaranethralayausa.org.
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