Raising funds for Parivaar thru Mumbai Marathon 2009

For the last three 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 more than 3 kids
for a year. Thanks to all those who were involved.

This year as with every year, I hope to do better since I have written to more
friends and I am also upping my own contribution.

The rest, please read on.

I am running in Mumbai on Jan 18th in the marathon. Through my run, I
wanted to raise funds for Parivaar, 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 their website and also here
for my personal take on them.

Interestingly Parivaar will complete 5 years in Dec and appropriately
enough has embarked on another bold initiative - developing a second
campus only for girls.

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 10K personally last yr). I have written to nearly
100 people likeminded people that we can help support more than 5-6 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 16th and 18th.

Looking forward to your replies.
Thank you and wish you a happy new year, well in advance.