Raising Funds for Parivaar though Mumbai Marathon 2008

For the last two years, I have raised funds for Parivaar, an organization for underprivileged kids, based out of Calcutta.

Some of you who know about Parivaar, can skip most of this post and write to me about
your willingness to contribute.

Last year, we managed to raise about enough funds to fund about 3 kids
for a year. Thanks to all those who were involved.

This year I hope to do better since I am upping my own contribution.

The rest, please read on.

I am running in Mumbai on Jan 20th in the marathon. Through my run, I
wanted to raise funds for Parivaar, (http://www.parivaar.org/ )

which is an organization for working for total rehabilitation of homeless children from categories like orphans, children of women in prostitution, street children, abandoned children, and other such highly vulnerable children.

Parivaar was started by Vinayak Lohani, a friend of mine from Infosys days. You could read about them at the url above and also at my blog http://dhammo.blogspot.com/2005/04/parivaar.html

for my personal take on them.

It costs around Rs. 15 K per year to sponsor one child at Parivaar. I expect that each of you can contribute 1K or more (I managed to contribute more than 1K personally last yr). I am writing to more than 45 people so that we can help support atleast 3 kids for a year. But if you want to contribute less than 1k or even nothing at all, it is still fine since this is a request for voluntary donations.

I need you to reply to me so that I can get an idea of how much I can raise. If you are willing to contribute, please let me know your postal addresses as well. The receipts will be sent directly to you by Parivaar.

Any further questions about Parivaar, write to vinayak@parivaar.org

I also have a couple of CDs which have information on Parivaar. Those of you who are interested, please let me know and I can send them to you. When you write to Vinayak as a donor and if you are interested, you get a periodic update on the activities at Parivaar.

Also, please feel free to forward this to friends of yours who would be interested in contributing to such a cause and copy me on your mails.

I should be in Mumbai b/w Jan 18th and 20th.

Looking forward to your replies.

Thank you and wish you a happy new year, well in advance.