March 2011

Dear friends,

Here is an update on what we covered on Mar 24th. We had for the first time used fabric tablecloths with real flowers as the centerpieces. The decoration was simple yet elegant. Some comments were made it looks like something special is happening today. Our intention and hope is to constantly seek ways to improve the quality of the senior program and make every moment special. That intention was served well that day.

Ramanji, with his passion and dedication led us through thee yoga session. We did warm ups, pranayamam. He also shared with us books on acupressure and yogasanas. These have a number of pictures as well. The books are available in Gujarati, Hindi and English. The books can be bought from him. He will be making them available in our next session as well. Next month, he will be spending a good amount of time addressing "sleep disorders" and yoga asanas and other techniques that will ease us all into effortless sleep.

We had a delicious and healthy lunch made by Poonam. The mattar paneer was so tasty. We had dal, roti, jeera rice and a very yummy fruit salad. The taste lingered long after we had the lunch ( on a side note, I came home and tried making fruit salad the same way, but I should say Poonam's fruit salad tasted much better).

We made some announcements, the most important being the upcoming Bhoomi Puja of our temple. Please mark your calendar for April 22 - April 24th. This will be a grand time to initiate the next phase of building a vedic temple that has been in our hearts and minds for years. We also shared the pledge form for the bhoomi puja that is available at our temple office. If you would like to pledge a donation during the Bhoomi Puja, please contact the office managers.

Gurleen Gulati and Pranji from the IAWW senior program came and shared some of the activities that IAWW senior program is involved in. One of them is a field trip that is being arranged for the seniors. If you would like to get details, please send an email to iawwsenior@hotmail.com. If you have insurance related questions for seniors, you could ask Gurleen Gulati atiawwgurleen@hotmail.com

We played Bingo after lunch. Prizes were given away to those winners.

We also announced few volunteer needs.

1. The corners of the tablecloth covers need to be hemmed. If anyone has a sewing machine and can spare half an hour, please send me a mail. I will bring them to your house and get it done.

2. We have had a lot of requests for a ride to the monthly luncheons. If you are willing to pick up seniors from a park and ride closer to your home, please let me know, we could reach out to more seniors, some of whom are willing to take a bus and come to the park and ride.

A very special thank you to our dedicated team of volunteers. Ramanji for his continued dedication and support to the yoga sessions, Super Volunteer Devrajji, Poonam for her delicious lunch, Neha for taking the pictures and all the anonymous volunteers who helped in making the senior program a seamless one.

Have a great spring month, enjoy the cherry blossoms, spring time is the time for renewal and rejuvenation. We will see you next month.