On Nov 12th, 2005, Sts. Peter and Paul Church, Southfield, Michigan, became the center of attraction for many Michigan Indian community members, where Spread India celebrated 3rd Deepavali Celebrations and Fund Raising Event. Over 200 participants attended up for the Event, and over $ 35,000 funds were raised on the day of the event, via incoming pledges and donations. 

Many community leaders, students and young professionals from all over USA attended, including special guests, Michigan State Senator, Mr. Hansen Clarke; community leader and Pholonstraphist, Mr. Narendar Reddy from Georgia state; Director of AID org, Mr. Kirna Vissa from Meryland state; Director Of IT North America, Ford Motor Company, Mr. Bipin Patel from Michigan state. 

Mr. Venkat Aekka, one of the active Michigan commnity members and the master of ceremonies, started the meeting by extending a warm welcome to the guests. Then Mr. Hansen Clarke, Narendar Reddy, Kiran Vissa, Bipin Patel, SPREAD INDIA president, Sridhar Patel, and SPREAD INDIA Board of Director, Dr. Sudhakar Reddy, lit the Divali lamps in a traditional way and inaugurated the event. Later on, the young artists from Lasyapriya Academy of Cultural Arts, performed excellent musical invocation to Gods with their song. 

Speaking on the occasion, President and founder of SPREAD INDIA, Sridhar Patel welcomed everyone to the Deepavali and fundraising event and introduced his core team members Dr. Sudhakar Reddy, Dr. Mallesham Karnati, Raju Chinthala, Vijay Vootkur. He said that his team has been working very hard with 100s of underprivileged children to achieve the SPREAD INDIA's mission. He also praised Board of Director of SPREAD INDIA and local community leader Dr. Sudhakar Reddy for his valuable help to SPREAD INDIA. He also appreciated all the regional coordinators' and the team in India hard word. 

Mr. Hansen Clarke, the Michigan state senator, highly commended the Spread India team for spreading and committing to the cause of education in rural India. While emphasising the importance of education, Mr. Clarke recalled his own childhood experiences and said that his father always used to emphasise the importance of education and inspired him to go to university and get the best education. While sharing his own critical childhood events, he said that the education that he received from Cornell University made a lot of difference in his life. He is very happy to know about the efforts of Spread India organization to offer the rural underprivileged kids all the resources to get a good education. He appreciated Spread India for providing a good channel and platform for Indian community members to take part in building the rural India. He said that every penny that the Indians contribute here will be well utilized for educating the economically disadvantaged students in rural India. With these donations, the economically poor students in India can get better education and bring their families out of the poverty cycle. Some of them can also offer outstanding technical services to US companies after getting a good education. In this way, he said, by donating to this good cause, you are not only helping the Indian economy but also indirectly the US and the world economy. While commenting on the concerns of some people about the global outsourcing trends, Mr. Clarke said that we need not worry about the outsourcing and said that though there is some temporary set back in the local job market, it will have a positive effect in the US market ultimately. 

Mr. Narender Reddy, a well-known Indian community leader and philanthropist from Georgia state made a very inspiring speech about the importance of contributing to the community services. Commending the excellent contributions made by the Indians towards the enrichment of US economy, Mr. Narender Reddy said that the only area where Indian contributions are lagging behind is the philanthropy. He extolled the philantrhopic spirit of US people and advised the Indians to emulate their spirit by giving and sharing with the community. Please click here for his complete speach. 

Mr Kiran Vissa, who is a director of AID org, appreciated the great services of Spread India for the cause of education. Quoting Gandhiji, he said that those who can feel the pain of others as their own pain and help them to get out of that pain can make a lot of difference in the society. He appealed to the people to contribute to the good cause of educating the rural children. He said that there are many ways in which the audience can help. For example, they can publish small brochures about the health awareness programs and distribute them to the rural children. They can also bring out small booklets about science experiments and circulate them to the school children. Such activities will have a lot of impact on the lives of young children. 

Mr. Bipin Patel, IT Director, Ford Motor Company, said that education plays an important role and makes a lot of difference in ones life. He said that only because of the vision of his parents who provided him the gift of education, he could achieve a great success in his life, while his siblings in India are still living a hand to mouth life by working on the farms since they lack education. He appreciated Spread India team for providing such a life long gift of education to the rural Indian children and said that such education will open many doors to climb up the ladder of success in their lives. 

Dr. Sudhakar Reddy gave a wonderful power point presentation of Spread India's activities and achievements. While explaining the philosophy of Spread India, he said, we don't give fish to a boy, but we teach him how to catch a fish. That will make a lot of difference not only in his life but also in the lives of those around him. While commenting on the learning patterns of the children, he said that they learn to learn until the age of 8 and that is where Spread India comes into picture by nurturing these young children by providing the learning opportunities. He said that by skipping an expensive dinner party at a hotel, or by avoiding an extravagant shopping in the outlet mall, people can save a lot and contribute that money to the noble cause of imparting the education to the disadvantaged children. Later on, he explained the process of Spread India's activities and highlighted its achievements for all these years. 

These speaches were followed by the fund-raising activity conducted by Venkat Aekka and Dr. Aparna Ananth. There was an overwhelming response and SPREAD INDIA could raise over $ 35,000 dollars.
Note: SPREAD INDIA started fund raising event three years ago on a modest scale and got a warm response by receiving $ 500 US dollars from the audience. 

Later on, Hema, on behalf of Lasyapriya Academy of Cultural Arts, organized dance and cultural programs. More than 10 girls participated in this and performed various types of dances. Delicious food was supplied by Ashoka restaurant at reasonable cost. Towards the end, Alka provided a good entertainment by singing many popular songs. Program ended with fireworks. Audiences were thrilled with cultural programs and fireworks. Many people from far off places also attended this program and made it a grand success. 

Some of the major sponsors include: GM (Genearl Motors), Voice 2 MT, Inc. a medical transcription company, MINRI Links, a web-based search engine serving Michigan community, Iknowvate.