Newsletter – August 2023
| Vanakkam. The beginning to August has been both tumultuous and heart warming for our community. The loss of Lahaina town and the unknown number of lives lost brings back the stark reality of limitation of our own lives in face of either natural or human encouraged calamities. It is a loss that affects almost all of us who in some fashion have a connection to this place in our state. LOTUS Board will be working on a monetary donation through an well established organization to support the recovery efforts. I would urge all of you to consider your own ways of supporting this cause. Our Board will make the donation through Hawaii Community Foundation, Maui Strong Fund. On a more positive note, LOTUS used the India Day Celebrations at the Hawaii Polo Club on August 13th to be a fund raiser for our ongoing Wahiawa Temple Renovation project. LOTUS had a food booth manned by volunteers who cooked various Indian dishes for sale. We also had an information booth selling donated Indian paraphernalia also manned by our junior volunteers under the watchful eyes of their parents. The other volunteers were performers, who mesmerized the crowd with a Bharatnatyam dance piece and a vocal solo piece. I would like to acknowledge our volunteers and supporters for this event. Mira Savara (Community engagement and financial support) Sundari Balaraman (Community engagement, Volunteer chef and Food Booth} Sundari Shankar (Community engagement, Volunteer chef and Food Booth) Rumki and Arup Halder (Volunteer chef and Food Booth) Supriya Kumar (Volunteer Chef) Mitra Neupane (Volunteer chef and Food Booth) Anu Movva (Volunteer chef and Food Booth) Preetha Anand (Volunteer Chef) Savitha and Maiju Kutty (Volunteer chef) Viji Sundar (Volunteer chef) Malathi Sekar (Food Booth) Devi and Sudhakar (Volunteer chef and Food Booth) Latha Ramesh (Volunteer chef) Bhanu Vellanki (Food Booth) Prasiddi Bhat (Vocalist) Janani, Akshatha and Shreya (Bharatnatyam) Sachi Kumar (Food Booth) Praneet and Praveen (Food Booth) Janani, Pavani, and Shruthi (Junior volunteers) JJ Niebuhr (Black Shamrock – Community Kitchen) Additionally we had items for sale donated by Sankaran Krishna, Sundari Shankar, Mitra Neupane, Rafia Hasan, Mira Savara, Sundari Balaraman, Savitha Kutty, Devi Sudhakar, Supriya Kumar, Nita Patel, Sakthi Karthik and Manisha Maker. If there are omissions in any of the names of individuals volunteering or contributing, the fault lies squarely on my shoulders for not keeping up with a proper audit of all contributions. We raised almost $3000 during this event. Please view the photos of the event on our website or use this quick link. Please do make it point to visit the temple as the first phase of the facelift is almost complete. One of the community commitments would be to keep this place of worship kept up routinely with volunteer cleaning commitment. Our fundraising for this project continues as our goal to raise $12000 to get this done is still short by approximately $4000. Please use this link to do a targeted donation towards Wahiawa Renovation Project. As we slowly come to the end of summer, please stay safe as our communities start to see spike in the cases of infection and continue to practice good personal hygiene. Warm aloha, V. Balaraman President |
| Community Corner – TBD I would encourage members of our community to submit brief write up of their choice for this area of the newsletter. I truly believe that this would enhance the value for our readership. |
| Temple Activities – August 20th, 2023 Our monthly pooja will start promptly at noon on the 20th. We are expecting Dr. Bhawuk to be officiating the pooja after his prolonged world travels. We hope to live stream on Zoom with our helpers Arup and Shankar to assist with the pooja in the sanctum. Hope to see you all there. I would like to remind you all that the prasadam and pot luck after the pooja will be a Community sponsored one so if planning to join us please bring one of your favorite dishes to share.  |
| August and September 2023: August 20 – Wahiawa Temple Pooja Day August 29 – Onam August 30 – Rakhi and Raksha Bandan August 30 – Purnima (Blue Moon) September 4 – Labor Day September 4 – Teachers’ Day September 8 – Spiritual event presented by Sripad Swami Bodhyan – Complementary tickets Septermber 9 – Spiritual event presented by Sripad Swami Bodhyan – Complementary tickets September 17 – Wahiawa Temple Pooja Day September 19 – Ganesha Chaturti September 23 – Autumn Equinox |
