Every year, there should be some social/ voluntary activity is the one of the Objective of Pellipoolajada. We wanted to Start 2015 with making poolajadalu for Grandmothers of Old age homes....just wanted to see them happy in the last phase of their life. We consulted 5 old age homes in Hyderabad about our idea, but the management did not give us green signal... and we had only last 5 days of 2014 to decide what to do for New Year. With no option left, i asked Cognizant-Outreach team to suggest a school/Orphanage for adoring kids with poolajadalu.
Shravan suggested me "Safe Charitable Foundation" of BN Reddy colony. There were around 40kids, 20 girls and 20 boys. When we saw the pictures of girls, most of them had haircut. So we dropped the idea of poolajadalu and focused on Flower jewellery. As most of them did not have traditional dresses, we estimated the cost of dress and flower jewellery for event, which came to 35K. To keep the program budget in limit, i requested Sairaj of Mask makeup and Rajesh garu of Rajesh Mindi photography to do voluntary service on Jan-1st... and they accepted immediately... !!!!!!!!!!!
I told all our Pellipoolajada branches and my friends who are interested in sponsoring for the event. Srinivas Rao garu and Swetha responded immediately that they would sponsor some amount for the event. All Hyderabad branches agreed to give flower jewellery for free and my friends gave money for dresses.
We went to Safe charitable foundation to take measurement of kids to get dresses stitched. Then we noticed that some of the kids needed sweaters. We bought sarees and our LBnagar team members (most of them are tailors) had to stitchTelugu traditional Langa-Blouse with the material. We delegated each member, 2 dresses to be stitched.
But only half the dresses were ready by Dec-31. I had to rush to PVT market-Kothapet to buy dresses for rest of the kids. When we told about the cause of donating dresses, only one of the shop owner responded and gave discount :(
January-1-215
Kukatpally branch -Rani, Secbad branch- Laxmi, LBnagar-koteeswari, Gachibowli branch-Jaya were ready with flower jewellery and jada. Anu of Delhi branch came to Hyderabad for vacation and she gave artificial flower tiaras to all girls.
Kids ready to wear the stitched dresses
Sairaj transformed the kids with his magic Make-up and kids were so happy, that they glued to the mirrors. Rajesh garu took pics of the kids. Teachers and Managers of Safe Charitable foundation were so happy to see their kids in this new Avatar.
After the event was done, when we checked the balance sheet, we were left with some more money, so we bought dresses for boys too...LBnagar Branch manager Koteeswari son, Narendra did all shopping of sweaters, and co-ordinated with Safe Foundation on buying additional dresses and sweaters.
organizers requested us specially not to get cakes/ Junk food for kids..... Due to increased awareness of spending time in orphanages for birthdays and important events, Organisers have noticed a sharp increase in Cakes and Junk food consumption of these kids... which led to many health issues . Even we decided not buy/donate Cakes for Kids
Those who wish to contact safe foundation: Phone: 7702737569
House No 5-7-410, Sriram Nagar Colony, B N Reddy Nagar, Vanasthalipuram, near ushodaya degree college, Hyderabad - 500070
Rajesh Mindi birthday was on Jan-4, and he was ready with printed pics and fruits. Kids were delighted to see their pics. We had a tough time in identifying the kids in pictures...with and without make-up. Gave the pics to kids, so that they can treasure their memories....
Our effort was recognised by Eenadu and published in Eenadu City Special centre page.
