“I thought you might be interested in the attached. This young lady, Deepika (and her family) has been supportive of all of our Hartford Area and University of Connecticut Asha and Starfish fundraising events for the past 2+ years in support of the Blind School. Deepika’s latest effort is to break the Guinness Book of World Records for assembling their official jigsaw puzzle and she has set up a fundraising page through Asha-Hartford, with all funds raised in support of the Blind School.

Here is the link:

http://www.active.com/donate/DeepuGWRAttempt

The vertical construction is in full swing!

This full view of the project shows the scope of the new building.

The above picture shows the site of the new building.  The land has been cleared and ready for construction to start.Here we can see the construction materials being delivered to the site.The final picture is of the foundation being prepared.  Ground has been broken!

http://jorgensen.uconn.edu/

Haven’t heard them before? Check them out by clicking on the link Penn Masala \”Aankhon Mein Tu Hai

Since 2008, Starfish has teamed up with Asha for Education to host an annual fundraising event in the Hartford, CT area called Celebrate India, a summer cultural festival dedicated to showcasing India’s traditions and trends.

Celebrate India! offers a variety of activities including a cricket demo, Indian cuisine, music, dancing, vendors, and demonstrations of Indian art such as henna tattoos and Rangoli, and a Bollywood Exhibit. Other recreational activities include a volleyball tournament, arts and crafts, and children’s games.

Other Hartford area fundraising events jointly hosted by Starfish and Asha include a Holi festival dinner and Bhangra dance night, and a talent show at the University of Connecticut, known as Beats of Hope.

Starfish’s partner in the these events, Asha for Education is an international, secular charitable organization, which is dedicated to the support of the basic education of underprivileged children in India and raising social awareness of their plight. Asha, which means “hope,” believes that education is the most effective means to solve the problems of poverty, population explosion and bring about long-term socio-economic change.

To learn more about Asha and the partnership with Starfish, visit CelebrateIndia.org

“Beats of Hope” was created by students who wanted to give other UCONN students the chance to showcase their many talents in front of their fellow students as a means to create awareness. With the help of many students, namely Mayuri Patel, Bijal Patel, Sneha Parikh, Kartik Patel, Nisha Odedra, Ram Odedra, Parag Bhuva, Vaishali Patel, Purbita Saha, Himink Gucpa, this event was made possible.

All sorts of performers participated such as tap dancers, Irish step dancers, guitarists, singers, A capella groups, hip hop, Kickline, etc. It was a huge turn out and a very exciting and fun night! We are looking forward to the upcoming event which will be held on December 3, 2010 in the Jorgensen theater on the UCONN Storrs Campus. A capella group “Penn Masala” will be performing to support the Starfish Children’s Fund and the ASHA UCONN chapter.

The Starfish Children’s Fund is honored to have the support of the Gamma Gamma Chapter of Pi Sigma Epsilon (PSE) at Miami University of Ohio!  For the past three years PSE has contributed a portion of their philanthropic efforts to helping us achieve our goal of bringing education to children who need it most.  We thank them for all their hard work.