It has been a week-long festival of ‘giving’, which ended on a fruitful note with much having been given away. Yet, when the “Joy of Giving Week” (JGW) came to an end on Monday, the giving was not yet done. While some institutions has plans to make it a continuous effort, the organisers of the JGW, Rotary Coimbatore Central, promises to make it a much larger event next year, in association with others.
JGW began with ‘Aram Seyya Virumbu’, the flagship event, on Gandhi Jayanthi. At the end of two days, the 23 social service organisations that had put up stalls at Ramakrishna Kalyana Mandapam had attracted over 5,000 visitors who got an opportunity to learn about the activities of these organisations.
N. Krishnakumar, Director of the JGW, said the organisations were able to meet many people and explain about their activities and the areas that they needed help in, in terms of cash, kind or people working with them as volunteers. The response was good in terms of contributions, considering this was the first time the event was being held in Coimbatore, he said.
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Collection of old books was still on. Corporates and institutions will continue contributing till the end of this week. This would be sorted out and distributed to three libraries in Molapalayam, Theethipalayam and Devarayapuram.
The contribution of college students was seen at all levels – as volunteers at the ‘Aram Seyya Virumbu’ event, setting up collection points for collecting books and toys, and also organising some individual events for students within the college. Each college came up with different ways of giving. Students of SNR Sons College set up food stalls at Ramakrishna Kalyana Mandapam. The profit of nearly Rs. 10,000 is being handed over to the college management to be in turn handed over to charity.
Students of GRD School of Commerce and International Business gave away all used things that could be spared. This included used shoes, books, clothes, bags, etc. These would be handed over to the beneficiaries directly by the students.
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Another innovative theme was followed by students of PSG Institute of Management. They took up answering quiz questions on www.freerice.com to contribute 10 grains of rice each question to the World Food Programme, an initiative to end hunger. Students answered many questions for a week to contribute 2.8 lakh grains of rice. Besides this, money, used clothes and other items were also collected to be handed over to old age homes and orphanages for Deepavali.
Such instances show a promise of continued efforts to carry forward the ‘giving’ spirit.