VT Seva Cary in collaboration with Carolina For The Kids successfully completed a Toy Drive. This drive was initiated by our youth volunteer Sowandarya Chivukula. She was assisted by Ishani Dasyam, Manasvi Gudibandi, Lasya Tula, Yashika Suraneni & Anish Yarlagadda. The drive ran for two weeks. Volunteers collected new toys from the homes of donors. All the toys that were collected through this drive were dropped off at UNC Children's hospital on April 9th, 2021. They will be going to the pediatric patients at the hospital. VT Seva Cary would like to thank all the donors and parents for their time & support!! Kudos to all the volunteers who participated in the toy drive!!

VT Seva Cary recently conducted their March Monthly Meeting. Youth volunteers discussed about some of the programs and got to witness beautiful and artistic talent from their peers. The session started off with a big welcome to the wave of new volunteers who joined VT Seva Cary this month. These volunteers were very enthusiastic and it was joyful to see the branch grow. This welcome was followed by a beautiful guitar performance by Sowndarya Chivukula. She played the very popular piece, “Für Elise,” composed by Beethoven. After this performance, Mahathi Mallela and Rohitha Sanka talked about “Feed a School” program being conducted by VT Seva. They explained about Netra Vidyala and Tribal schools in India being run by our organization. They educated the volunteers on the different ways they could provide food for the students in these schools. If you would like to celebrate your special occasions by donating to these schools, then please visit the below link to know more about the “Feed a School” program. https://www.vtsworld.org/specialoccasion Following this discussion, Nithya Janapati presented a fascinating showcase of her talent. She presented a collection of her eye-catching art and talked to the volunteers about how important it is to have a stress-relieving hobby. Finally, the volunteers played a short game of Kahoot, and the meeting concluded with an engaging VT Seva version of Jeopardy, created by Thanuj Desu. March month’s meeting was very exciting and informative to all the youth volunteers. We can’t wait for April month’s meeting!

On February 28th, VT Seva Cary youth board directed their first PVSA awards ceremony. This eventful session opened up with a blast of energetic words from our directors Kalyani Sanka and Sowjanya Thungathurti, and our amazing emcee and youth board President, Chandrika Changalvala. Then, Thanuj Desu and Ashrith Desu talked about the various activities VT Seva Cary has done so far in 2021. The ceremony started with some inspirational words from our guest speaker, Dawn Dixon. Dawn is the race coordinator at FSSeries, one of the many events our volunteers really enjoy volunteering at. She spoke of her experience on volunteering and service, and helping our volunteers learn how to branch out to gain more experience. Then, our advisor Chakradhar Sriperumbudur spoke about the PVSA awards and volunteerism. The PVSA Award winners were recognized after which they were asked to speak about their experience and journey that led them to this honorary award. Each volunteer gave incredible speeches that were very motivational to the audience. Then Ishani Dasyam introduced VT Seva Cary monthly spotlight performance by one of our very own youth volunteers, Bhaavita Nekkalapudi. Bhaavita gave an energetic performance by playing an improvised piece on the drums, in quite a unique circumstance, that left us all speechless. Finally, the volunteers ended the session on a fun note by playing a quick game of Kahoot, run by Rohitha Sanka, that was both engaging and entertaining. Needless to say, it was a very successful session, leaving all of our volunteers inspired and motivated. Chakradhar Sriperumbudur Kalyani Sanka Sowjanya Thungathurti Narsimha Tirunagari Aravind Ramanuja Dasan

A month’s effort of VT Seva Cary youth volunteers finally culminated with a donation at Western Wake Crisis Ministry in Apex yesterday, February 23rd, 2021. Karthikeya Dandu along with Aneesh Yarlagadda and Srini Tirunagari started a food drive with the intention of donating the proceeds to Western Wake Crisis Ministry. A great initiative during these tough times! Later, these kids were joined by Ashrith Desu, Ishani Dasyam, Akhil Dammalapati, Sribhaavita Nekkalapudi & Bharath Nekkalapudi. They prepared flyers and shared it in their respective communities and picked up donations from their neighbors, all the while maintaining strict Covid protocols. Together, they were able to collect and donate 175 pounds of food. This was possible due to the generosity of the donors. We would like to take this opportunity to thank each one of you who donated food for this drive!!! A huge shoutout to parents of these kids for extending their support and helping make this initiative a huge success! Kudos to all the kids who participated in this food drive, especially Karthikeya and Aneesh for such a thoughtful initiative!!

Today, VT Seva Cary youth volunteers received their PVSA awards. This year we had eight gold, one silver, and four bronze awards. Volunteers who received the awards are Ashrith Desu, Dhriti Koneru, Ishani Dasyam, Lakshmi Annugu, Mahathi Mallela, Manasvi Gudibandi, Monish Manne, Neeraja Boppana, Rohitha Sanka, Sribhaavita Nekkalapudi, Srichandrika Changalvala, Srinivas Tirunagari and Thanuj Desu. Hearty congratulations to these kids and thank you to their parents for their excellent support!! Chakradhar Sriperumbudur Kalyani Sanka Sowjanya Thungathurti Narsimha Tirunagari Aravind Ramanuja Dasan

This February, VT-Seva Cary planned something special to lighten up the days of members living in life care and assisted centers. Around 20 enthusiastic volunteers beautifully handcrafted Valentine’s Day cards with warm wishes and good health for the citizens living at Glenfora Living Assisted Center. Not only that but our volunteers also gracefully made cards ranging from the young to the old for the staff and people at Transitions LifeCare Center. They made 20 beautiful cards for the staff members and 25 cards for the people living there. At, VT-Seva Cary, we always strive to bring smiles to people’s faces during hard times like these and to encourage others to do the same.

VT Seva Cary chapter organized the January 2021 Happy Hour event to engage and bring the volunteers together virtually. The Happy Hour was a fun get-together for the volunteers since it provided important information for them along with some entertainment for the volunteers to get to know each other!

VT Seva Cary organised an event on the College Applications process to make the volunteers aware. This event has been conducted by Chandrika.

VT Seva Cary has partnered with UNC to spread some Christmas joy this holiday season. VT Seva (Volunteering Together for Service) is a volunteer driven global non profit organization. and UNC is a public, academic medical center operated by and for the people of North Carolina. We have made 100 cards for patients and 355 cards for the staff who work tirelessly to keep the community safe. Twenty people have signed up for the project and worked to sincerely give their thanks to each Healthcare Worker who has worked countless hours.

In these hard times of Corona Virus Pandemic, that is spreading throughout the world, our organization, VT-Seva Cary has organized lunch and dinner to the staff of UNC Women's Health Hospital, Chapel Hill on May 2nd,2020. We appreciate the hard work of all the health care workers and doctors who are on the front line to save lives during this pandemic. We also thank all the donors who came forward to participate in this event. Our sincere thanks to Dr. Anitha Muddana, who gave us the opportunity to serve the healthcare staff. We are all quarantined at home and this is just one thing that we can do to let the front line workers know how much we appreciate them during this time.

On May 2nd 2020, VT- Seva Cary conducted a virtual volunteer meet. In this meeting we announced the 2019 Presidential award winners and introduced the 2020 Youth Board. In the duration of this meeting we discussed about the establishment and goal of VT- Seva volunteering and further activities for youth volunteers.

One of our VT-SEVA Cary active & energetic volunteers "The Nekkalapudi Family" services to the community. This pandemic brought a lot of change all around, whether it is social distancing, working from home, online classes or essential businesses staying open while others closed. Each family has somehow coped with the situation in their own way. While frontline Healthcare workers and essential workers are fighting to save lives and keeping everyone healthy, many organizations are working towards providing all the support they can to help those in need. As a small gesture of support, the Nekkalapudi family marched ahead in their own unique way. While the father, Subramanyam Nekkalapudi, started teaching yoga online in their community, the mother-daughter duo, Sravani Nuthakki and Sribhaavita Nekkalapudi, started making cloth masks to donate to those in need. Sribhaavita took charge of washing the material, ironing it, cutting it for the masks as well as the ties, pinning them and later pleating the masks while her mother stitched them. These are double layered masks with a pocket for adding a filter. So far they have donated 80 masks to various organizations and individuals. They are working on making more. Sribhaavita Nekkalapudi is an 8th grader at Carnage Magnet Middle School. She is an active VT Seva Cary volunteer and is a recipient of Presidents Gold Award for the year 2019. She knows that this effort is a drop in the ocean. But as someone said - ‘What is any ocean but a multitude of drops?’

VT Seva, Cary has come forward to show the gratitude to the Hospital Staff who are tirelessly working against the COVID-19 to save all of us. We have organized a “THANK YOU LUNCH” to the UNC REX Healthcare Doctors and Hospital Staff on Thursday, April 30th. We are glad to mention our sincere Thanks to Dr. Amitha Ravulapati, who helped us in reaching the Hospital Staff. And Thank all, who have come forwarded to participated and showed their commitment towards serving the community. We will be looking forward to serving the other Organization staff soon. Thank you

VT Seva Cary kids volunteered at Kramden, Durham NC on 3/4/2020 from 5pm-9pm. They did LCD testing, cleaning up monitors, CPUs, deconstructed the printers which are donated to prevailed people in Wake county.

VT Seva Cary kids volunteered on Saturday 2/29/2020 from 9am -12pm at Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina sorting 17,500 meals worth of food. What a great way to get involved in serving the community.