New Jersey VT Seva

Here are some of the main activities conducted by VT Seva-NJ chapter.

Jan 2012 Activity
	On Jan 1, 2012 - New Year day, our volunteers opened a booth at 222 Dey Road, Cranbury, NJ 08512 and brought the public awareness on VT Seva activities. Our volunteers actively distributed VT Seva flyers & explained VT Seva activities to the public. Several people showed interest in our activities and signed up for Dollar a day Program & other activities. On Jan 14, 2012, VT Seva organized a Bone Marrow program at the same premises. Our volunteer took over the public attention with Bone Marrow Information & presentations. Several people showed interest, came forward and signed up for Bone Marrow.
Food Drive
	As the year 2011 ending with lots of holidays, VT Seva NJ team geared up the food drive against hunger in New Jersey. Mercer Street Friends Food Bank is chosen for the donation. It is one of the main food distributors in New Jersey. It can distribute the food to local soup kitchens and others in need. This time we concentrated more on selective nutritious food and collected about 550 pounds. On Dec 24th, 2011 around 10AM, several VT volunteers including kids & youngsters and VT Seva executive board members had joined and enjoyed the activity. We loaded the food to the vehicles and dropped off at Mercer Street Friends Food Bank, 828 Silvia Street, Ewing , NJ 08628.
Hurricane Irene in NJ: Disaster Recovery
	Our volunteers joined American Red Cross Disaster Recovery team, 707 Alexander Road Princeton, NJ - to help hurricane flood victims on Sep 18, 2011. Our team got the exclusive work of cleaning the food/medical/utilities transportation trucks and make them ready for next items for transportation and drop off. Many young and elder volunteers participated in the activity. Surprisingly in such short notice, several volunteers attended to help victims from natural calamity. American Red Cross team was very happy on our attendance in such short notice.
Tsunami fund raise
	In the month of April, 2011, the volunteers actively involved in fund raising activity for Tsunami disaster recovery. Several places the fund collection drop off boxes were placed. A significant amount is raised and contributed for recovery. Many people generously contributed to the fund.
VT Seva at ZEE TV-India Fair
	On Apr 23, 2011, VT Seva-NJ hosted a booth in ZEE TV sponsored India Fair. Along with elder volunteers, several young too actively participated in the event. They showed great initiative & drive - going around, educating public about VT Seva activities. The volunteers visited other social / community organization and shared the ideas. Several organizations showed lots of interest in VT Seva activities. we mainly focused on Bone Marrow and Tsunami fund raise in this event. Several people from public have visited the booth, signed up for Bone Marrow and generously contributed to Tsunami fund. VT Seva volunteers continued Tsunami fund raise activity to the end of Apr 2011.
Stream Cleanup 2011
	Our volunteers joined the 5th Annual Stream Cleanup 2011 organized by Tony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association, as part of the environmental protection at Village Park parking lot, 38 Maplewood Ave, Cranbury, NJ 08512. About 20 of our volunteers participated to the event on Sat April 9th, 2011 at 9:00AM. Boots, garbage collection bags, long sleeves, work gloves & water bottles were provided to the volunteers. With lots of joy, our volunteers had went around the places and collected the garbage. Volunteers took lots of interest to go into the deep bushes and pulled out tons of garbage including plastic bottles, plastic bags, and soda cans. After finishing here, our volunteers went to the Cranbury town streets and collected the garbage too.
Feb 2011 VT Seva Booth & Bone Marrow
	VT Seva volunteers had actively helped & participated in fund raising event for Jeeyar Asramam, on 2/12/2011 at North Brunswick High School, 98 Raider Rd, Rt 130, North Brunswick, NJ 08902. The volunteers coordinated various activities in this initiative. They had coordinated & serviced the food for 500 people. They took initiative in setting up the booths. Various VT Seva activities were presented on video in VT Seva booth. The volunteers actively educated the public about VT Seva activities. In the same month Bone Marrow activity was conducted at Jeeyar Asramam. Several people enquired about the activity and sign up for Bone Marrow.
Canned Food Drive
	Holidays bring cheer and joy; Holidays remind us of hunger in our communities. Food shortage is at epidemic proportions in our country due to the toughest financial times. Under the guidance of our CEO, HH Sri Chinna Jeeyar Swamiji, VT Seva & JET USA have joined forces to fight hunger by conducting Holiday Food drive; to help support our local community food banks. VT Seva NJ Branch donated over 600 lbs of food items and hygiene products to the - Skeet’s Pantry - First Presbyterian Church, Cranbury, NJ 08512- http://www.cranburypres.org/announcements.html#skeets Upon the food pantry organizer's request VT Seva NJ collected and donated the following items: canned/boxed soup, canned vegetables, fruits and fruit juices, breakfast cereals, rice, pasta laundry detergent, tooth paste, and hand soap.
Dollar A Day Program
	Our NJ chapter adapted Dollar A Day program. A nice letter with web links to School for Blind, Jr. College for Blind, Tribal Education Events, School for Tribal in Allampalli, School for Tribal in Birsapeta & School for Fishermen pages was created. The email was distributed to 1100 people. Our motivation is call the interested people on phone every other day and educate them on our schools and activities. We got very good response from the public. This is an on going project for ever.
Go Green! Project
	VT Seva New Jersey young volunteers undertook the project of making the "Viswasanthi Sri Yagam" a green event. The Viswasanthi Sri Yagam is a unique mass prayer for world peace and prosperity that was organized by JETUSA, a non profit organization under the guidance of His Holiness Sri Chinna Jeeyar Swamiji. Approximately 8,000 people attended this 10 day event. In order to make the event environmentally friendly, VT Seva successfully replaced all the plastic and foam food serving products with eco-friendly material and paper products, helping to keep the environment clean. A VT Seva booth was also set up to bring awareness to the public about VT Seva activities around the world.
Bone Marrow Awareness Drive
	VT Seva NJ conducted a bone marrow drive at the Telugu Fine Arts Society cultural event on Apr 24, 2010 held at Hammarskjold Middle School, East Brunswick, NJ 08816. Both young and adult volunteers actively worked with the crowd to explain the real need for bone marrow donors. Many young couples volunteered to become donors and save lives. THE FACTS ARE … Leukemia and other fatal blood disorders can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere, it is an equal opportunity disease. Scientists do not fully know what causes leukemia, but it usually proves fatal unless a matching donor is found in time. The odds of finding a match are between 1 in 20,000 to 1 in 100,000. Having a large number of donors, particularly from the same race, increases the chances of a patient finding a positive match for a life-saving blood stem cell/bone marrow transplant.
Earth Day celebration in April
	We celebrated Earth Day over multiple weekends at the Jeeyar Asramam at 222 Dey Road, Cranbury, NJ 08512. - Wood collection: Collected all fallen tree branches and moved to a common place. These will used for Sriyagam. - Planting: Planted various flower & vegetable plants. And trimmed the plants. - Cleaned up the Asramam premises. Volunteers from both JET & VT Seva participated in the event. Young volunteers from JET Pragna & VT Seva showed a lot interest in the activities.
AP Flood Relief
	In DIWALI MELA 2009 at Ukrainian Cultural Center, 135 Davidson Ave., Somerset, NJ 08873, on Sun, Oct 11, 2009 @ 10:00 AM, VT Seva-NJ sponsored a booth exclusively for AP Flood Relief. Our volunteers nicely made photo presentation boards & video presentation for the real situation of AP Flood victims and our CEO HH Swamiji activities. Our volunteers spread all over the place to educate about AP Flood Relief & Other activities of VT Seva. People generously donated to the noble cause. At the end of the event, several other booth keepers too came forward and donated to our activities.