About HATS

History of HATS

Founding of HATS (27 September 2009) and the First Year of the School (2009-2010):

Minnesota has approximately 40000 Hindus, of whom perhaps 10000 live within a 10 mile radius of the Mandir. In April 2009, Vishal Agarwal, a resident of Maple Grove, was introduced to Dr (Mrs) Kumud Sane (TEC President) and Dr Shashikant Sane by Suhag Shukla, the Managing Director of The Hindu American Foundation. Vishal came with a proposal to start a children’s Sunday school within the temple premises. The Sanes immediately offered 5 rooms and asked him to form a team and come up with an action plan and a proposed curriculum. 

A survey was conducted during the Raj Mahotsava in June 2009 to gage the local Hindu community’s enthusiasm for the proposed school. The team expected that 25 children might get enrolled in the first year. But the response was so tremendous that it became clear that HATS might have to make arrangements to accommodate 60 students to start with! Obviously, the proposed Sunday school was going to fulfill a great unmet need of the local Hindu American community – the desire to preserve and propagate our traditions from our generation to the next. After several meetings, a team of several adults (Vishal Agarwal, Dimple Malik, Mumta Gosain, Suparna Chaganti, Arvind Naik, Shankar Rajgopal, Neha Markanda, Kedar Phanse, Vishal Arora and Rakesh Atreya) and teenagers (Shraddha Raghavan, Anvita Singh, Mahati Pidaparti and Rohan Sinha) was formed to start the school, which was named as ‘The Hindu American Temple School’ (HATS).

The Sanes and the core team of parents sent out appeals to the community in July 2009 to volunteer as teachers. Several individuals stepped up to the challenge. In August-September 2009, Vishal Agarwal (in consultation with Dr Shashi Sane) prepared training material, decided on the curriculum and set rigid publicized deadlines to ensure that they did not slacken. By the time the school finally inaugurated (with a well organized parent training program) on the Vijayadashami Day (27th September 2009), there were 88 students enrolled. Eventually, 17 more kids joined, leading to a total of 105. 

To keep it simple, HATS divided the students into 5 classes based on their ages, and offered only religion in the first year. While the youngest students (4-5 years old) learned to recognize different Hindu Deities, the eldest group (school grades 7 and up) studied all the major concepts of Hindu Dharma, like Karma, rebirth, Purusharthas, Varna, Ashramas etc. The intermediate students studied Ramayana, Panchatantra, lives of saints and so on. Week after week, it was a delight to see parents and children troop in to the Mandir for school, and then stay back for the Sunday arati and lunch. While the students studied about Hindu traditions from the teachers, their parents studied the Gita and the Kena Upanishad from the trimurti of Dr S Sane, Professor Prasanna Kumar and Professor Anant Rambachan. The adult classes will continue during the summer as well. One of the highlights of the year was the recitation of a Ganesh Arati by the youngest group of kids (trained by their teachers Suparna Chagani and Dimple Malik) during the Mandir’s Holi function. A few weeks later, the grade 3-4 kids (trained by Rakesh Atreya and Vishal Arora) sang the entire Hanuman Chalisa in the school assembly and then upstairs in the Mandir during the Hanuman Jayanti celebrations. Grade 1 and 2 kids (trained by Kedar Phanse and Neha Markanda) sang the Om Jai Jagadish Hare arati. Each week, the assembly would be inaugurated by the melodious chanting of mantras by teenager Mahati Pidaparti. 

Visitors representing all the US branches of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh witnessed the very first annual day of HATS on 23rd May 2010, and were thoroughly impressed. The chief guest, Professor Ved Nanda, was very moved by the speeches given by 3 teenage students in the grade 7-10 class taught by Shankar Rajagopalan and Vishal Agarwal. The visitors invited Dr Shashikant Sane to offer the HATS program to temple schools and Hindu communities all over North America in the years to come.

One remarkable effect of the successful founding of HATS was that parents and students came forward on their own to offer several new valuable services to the community. For example, Anvita Singh, a teenager and a HATS teacher, offered a book club during summer of 2010 at her home to kids. Shraddha Raghavan, another teenager and teacher, took a group of kids to a ‘Feed My Starving Children’ camp in June 2010. Rishi Sinha has offered math tutoring classes. A group of parents led by Jaydeep Kokate offered a 5 week Science club during the summer of 2010 to introduce scientific research methods to children this summer. Another group of parents led by Dr Raj Markanda offered SAT/ACT classes to teenagers in Summer and Fall of 2010. 

Second Year of HATS (2010-2011):

In the second year, HATS increased its enrolment from 105 to approximately 180 students. In addition to Dharma classes, six languages (Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi and Gujarati) were added to the offerings. Around 20 parents stepped forward to teach these languages, and many other Hindu parents offered to teach the Dharma classes being added. Two teachers, Arvind Naik and Nirav Sheth, started working towards incorporating meditation as an integral part of the curriculum. The Iragavarapu family (Raj, Padma, Meghana) that moved up from Des Moines, IA, and had considerable experience in running a Sunday school in their older place of residence, helped further solidify the programs. On 28th January 2010, HATS teenagers appeared for an interview on the Sangam radio. In August 2011, the Sanes, the Agarwals and Akshay Naik (a HATS student) were invited to the White House to attend two day long program organized by The Hindu American Seva Charities. The Summer Science and ACT camps offered by parent volunteers continued to run successfully. The second annual day was graced by a Hindu Public Intellectual Mr. Rajiv Malhotra. Students of various ethnicities set up beautiful stalls representing the culture and cuisines of different Indian states of India.

Another development during the second year was the spinning off of HYMN, the Temple Teenager Club, from HATS on 9th July 2010. The first council of HYMN was led by Shraddha Raghavan, Navin Jain, Rohan Sinha, Anvita Singh and Ayesha Bhatia. HYMN organized a spectacular ‘Ratri before Navaratri’ event, which has since become their signature annual event, drawing 400 visitors year after year.

Third Year of HATS (2011-2012):

The enrollment of HATS increased from 182 to approximately 257 and it became necessary to add the afternoon session, in addition to the already existing morning session. This new session was managed by Raj and Padma Iragavarapu. Malayalam was added as the 7th language to the HATS curriculum.

As the inauguration day fell on 11th September 2011, the tenth anniversary of 9-11, the chief guest of the program was the Police Chief of the Hennepin County. The Fire Chief of Maple Grove was also in attendance. Thereafter, twenty students from HATS went to the MN State Capitol in St Paul to chant Hindu prayers in a state organized gathering.

In addition to the usual classes, HATS also participated in the Flinthills Children’s Festival in St Paul, in collaboration with IAM (The Indian Association of Minnesota).

Fourth Year of HATS (2012-2013):

The total enrollment of HATS reached 300 students, making HATS the largest Sunday school of the Hindu American / Indian American communities in the Upper Midwest. Jainism classes were also added to the morning session. In May 2013, HATS students also met the visiting ex-President of India Dr Abdul Kalam Azad. Sanskrit was added as the 8th language to the HATS language curriculum. HATS students also participated in the Mandir Holi and Diwali programs. In January 2013, HATS also started the tradition of celebrating the Lohri festival; and added a children friendly Holi celebration to its list of events. Another big achievement of this year was the completion of five Dharma textbooks for the Dharma curriculum.

Fifth Year of HATS (2013-2014):

While the total enrollment of HATS  remained at 300, a parent also started a satellite branch in Eagan, that drew an additional 35 students. This branch of HATS lasted till 2015. HATS students assisted with fundraising for poor girls in India and Nepal. Once again, several HATS students appeared for a radio interview in January 2014. The Telugu community celebrated Ugadi for children in a big way. The sixth Dharma curriculum textbook was completed in this year. HATS assisted in raising money for the victims of the Uttarakhand floods.

Sixth Year of HATS (2014-2015):

HATS was inaugurated on the Janamasthami day in August 2014. The same month, several HATS and HYMN students were invited to sing the National Anthems of India and the United States in the presence of the Mayor of Maple Grove in the temple premises, during the official inauguration of the Hindu Cultural Center. Once again, HATS participated in the Flinthills Children’s Festival in June 2015. Two more Dharma curriculum textbook was completed this year, and teacher textbooks for the remaining two (grades 8/9) were compiled. HATS assisted in raising $6K for the victims of the Nepal Earthquake.

Seventh & Eighth Years of HATS (2015-2017):

HATS continues its operations and now the focus will be on formalizing the language class curriculum for our school, starting with Hindi and Marathi. HATS also started its collaboration with the Manabadi school, which offers very structured classes in the Telugu languages. Three additional classrooms were constructed. In future, we also hope to collaborate with the Tamil language schools in the Twin Cities.

In conclusion, the HATS program is definitely very helpful to parents and students in enabling them to live as informed, proud, productive and constructive Hindu Americans. It is a great new service that the Hindu Mandir is now offering to our community. HATS has ensured that even Hindu families who had little interest in the religious ceremonies in the Mandir are now drawn to the temple regularly for the sake of the education of their children.