Re: Just a thought: let us discuss & ACT!

Respectful group members,

I did little bit of home work on how we can provide financial resources to the children and other people in desperate need and give them a hand to overcome their financial struggles. As a mentioned in my earlier e-mail, we as a group should start doing few (two or three) small projects a year as minimum.

Someone in the group mentioned that we need to walk first before we run and I he is absolutely correct. Our goal is first take up small projects and set a good example for others to follow. A small project could be paying tuition fee for anyone who is desperate need or providing books to students/libraries or sponsoring afternoon lunch programs in schools or helping a farmer who is in serious financial trouble etc.

Dear friends.....I sincerely request you all with my folded hands that we start looking for opportunities to make difference in the lives of the beautiful less fortunate human beings. We should commit our self to be very opened minded and help people irrespective of caste, religion, region etc. These are just unwanted barriers in the society and we can & will overcome these barriers.

I spoke with a gentlemen who is helping lot of students and other people through his foundation. He is making significant difference with his big heart and strong desire to help. One of his recent samll project is supply free milk to the small kids during the last Godavari Pushkarams. He suggested few options for providng financial support.

Option 1: If we come up with small project (may be under $5,000), we can chip in all our contributions individually to a selected group member and he can coordinate sending that money to the right people. We also need to maintain some documention on the project scope and how the money is being spent just in case. This is the simplest and fastest way to provide financial support. The downside of this is that we can't claim tax dedcutions.

Option 2: Use his foundation to provide financial support for the projects we come up with. We will write checks to his foundation and he will make make sure money is sent to right place. Again, he needs documentation back home to show it to IRS if needed. We can claim tax deduction by doing this way. We need to help him to do all the leg work. With this we don't have to start a new non-profit organization and maintain all the records, file tax forms to the state & IRS.

Option 3: Set up our own non-proift organization.

I think, option 1 or 2 will be the best choice for us at this point and make donations through AndhraOne group. This is what I have so far and please feel to free comment and propose any better ways to reach people.

With love,

Ramesh 

  

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From:  "Chandu Sambasiva Rao" <srchandu@gmail.com>
Reply-To:  AndhraOne@googlegroups.com
To:  "AndhraOne" <AndhraOne@googlegroups.com>
Subject:  Re: Just a thought: let us discuss & ACT!
Date:  Fri, 06 Jan 2006 22:17:20 -0800
>
>Excellent proposal Ramesh!
>
>I feel very proud of our member-friends willing to go the extra mile to
>make a difference in the lives of those who need us most.
>
>I encourage all of our members to think about it and formulate a scheme
>of selecting and encouraging various projects. We want our members to
>be in charge of what they want to do while the group pitches in.
>
>Anyone, from any where, with a pragmatic and directly useful idea/plan
>that is in reach of our group is welcome. Before I say anymore, please
>collaborate, and figure out how best we take this idea to execution.
>
>Let us shoot for at least one project a month if not more!
>
>Regards,
>Chandu
>