Community
AID Cincinnati engages with multiple local Cincinnati Indian groups :
CINCINNATI DESI GOLF CDG
CDG is a group of about 100 Indian origin golfers from Cincinnati area. The group was formed 10 years back with 20 people and has grown exponentially. CDG members are not only enthusiastic about playing golf, but equally enthusiastic about giving back to community. CDG has been organizing annual fundraiser events for past 8 years.
AID Cincinnati and CDG have collaborated for fundraising events for last 3 years and CDG has decided to host 2021 fundraiser again for AID project.
Between 2018-2021 CDG has raised over $120,000 for AID Cincinnati supported projects – Balya (2018, 2019), Mithila(2020) and Eureka was spotlight project in 2021.
The 2021 fundraiser was be hosted on September 25th and the beneficiary project is Eureka Education. Eureka is AID India led initiative that conducts work in the areas of education, homes and integrated village development. Eureka plans to expand its activities in 6 villages supporting 180 children and also improve and provide learning materials to 1200 children in government / aided schools. Over $55,000 was raised for this project through 2022 fundraiser. Please visit registration link to get more details on this event.
Balya provides comfortable shelter, nutritious food, basic health care and clothing to the orphans. It also operates a school that provides free education to the orphans and other economically disadvantaged kids in the vicinity. Balya needed to expand their facility to accommodate more children by expanding classrooms, labs and staff room. CDG raised over $48,000 In 2018 and 2019.
CDG partnered with AID in 2020 for its "Chip-in for Children" fundraising initiative. Mithila was chosen as a spotlight project. Mithila, based in Andhra Pradesh, India, is a holistic nurturing facility for children which provides government-accredited quality education, nutritious food and clothing to elementary and middle school students from economically disadvantaged households. The event was a great success despite COVID and raised $20,000 that will be used towards facility expansion and improvements and operational expenses such as shoes, school bags, meals, and books.
Regional Community Groups
Small but vibrant Indian community in Cincinnati area has stood up from time to time to support various causes in India. AID has actively collaborated with several of these Indian community groups. The nature of these engagements have been multifold – fundraising to support projects and natural disasters recovery efforts, organizing talks by activists to familiarize with ground situation in India, celebrating national festivals such as Independence and Republic Day, organizing art and essay competitions for students, exhibition & sale of hand crafted artistic products from rural parts of India etc.
2020 was the worst year for humankind in recent history due to COVID. To make things worse, some of the states in eastern India were hit by natural calamities such as cyclone AMPHAN. Indian community in Cincinnati stood strongly in support. Various events were hosted to bring awareness and raise funds:
Organized talks by Sankar Halder from MUKTI project (https://muktiweb.org/) and Ayesha Khatun from MBBCDS (http://www.mbbcds.org/) project to share ground reality of COVID and post Amphan situation in Sundarbans area. Both the events were widely attended by AID supporters throughout USA.
Punjabi community outreach to support Kheti Virasat Mission’s (https://khetivirasatmission.org/) short-term relief and mid-term rehabilitation efforts,
Marathi community outreach in collaboration with Triveni Mitra Mandal (http://www.triveni-mandal.org/) in support of COVID helpline project run by SATHI (https://sathicehat.org/) in Pune and adjoining rural areas.
Greater Cincinnati Tamil Sangham raised funds that were used to support various COVID relief efforts by Eureka / AID India.