Anne Frank’s clarion call , “No one has become poor by giving,” strikes a chord with people who often look for some charity act. The number of such wonderful people with a big heart and ready to loosen their purse strings keeps swelling every year, especially when the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon comes calling.
The time arrived for a select gathering at a South Mumbai hotel across the Arabian Sea on Friday evening to acknowledge and bow to the admirable deeds of all those who have together raised a phenomenal Rs. 24.71 crore in aid of 292 NGOs from the SCMM 2015 run on January 18.
Maharastra Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, went out of the way to lavish praise on the fundraisers and donors. “The marathon was really exciting and a colourful sporting event. I am happy that you are promoting the culture of giving. There are many overseas-Indian philanthropists and they would be happy to give money. When I was a minister in the Vajpayee government, we had received around Rs. 4,000 crore from them. I would advise, if any of the NGOs have not, to register online with FCRA [Foreign Contribution Regulation Act] to benefit from overseas Indians.”
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