SEF’s 2nd Banquet raises over $200K for various eye care projects

Sankara Eye Foundation, USA (SEF) hosted its 2nd Banquet on March 4, 2006 at the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, California. Around 400 SEF donors and supporters attended the fund raising event and raised over $200,000 to benefit upcoming hospitals in Bangalore, Gujarat, Karnataka (near Shimoga) and Phase II of the newly built hospital in Andhra Pradesh (near Guntur). Immaculate banquet settings with bright lights and floral arrangements along with SEF’s well known hospitality enthralled the guests to an elegant evening. The crowd dressed in their best adorned the banquet hall to enjoy the event filled with music, dance and to hear the progress of SEF towards their vision of eradicating curable blindness in India.

Murali Krishnamurthy, Chairman of SEF talked about the grand vision to build 20 hospitals across India, each performing 50,000 free eye surgeries for a collective 1 million surgeries per year to fulfill the grand mission of “Vision 20/20 by year 2020”. SEF has supported 275,000 free eye surgeries thus far, with the help of the donor community. He talked about how the organization was run entirely by volunteers and how SEF received Charity navigator’s highest rating for sound fiscal management.

Chirag Patel, a medical student at UCSD who interned at the Coimbatore hospital and a high school senior Haarika Parige who volunteered her time at Guntur hospital shared their first hand experience of witnessing the gift of vision turned into reality delivered with devotion and providing hope for the less fortunate.

SEF champions in the community inspired the audience of the worthy cause. Sri Jayaram Komati who played a key role in rallying Telugu community to donate for the Guntur hospital described SEF as an organization that unites all the Indian communities to work together. Anil Lal, a generous donor rallied everyone around the SEF vision and its impact on the progress of India. Mr. Daji from Los Angeles talked about how the Indian community in the US has come a long way, and urged the audience to share a small part of the wealth to benefit the ones who are needlessly blind.

Leaders from the local community organizations, Vijaya Aasuri of Bay Area Telugu Association (BATA) and Ravi Reddy of Kannada Koota talked about the many rewards of donating to the great cause and mentioned Wall of Founders as one of them. Every $1000 donor can have their names or those of their beloved inscribed on the Wall of Founders mounted inside the premises of the hospitals. The evening is only successful with the donors’ participation and that they did, making generous pledges and donations towards the sponsorship opportunities.

Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, the Platinum Sponsor for this event, pledged to donate $300 per transaction to SEF with every new refinancing deal. Mr. Mukesh Mowji, Vice-Chairman of AAHOA (Asian American Hotel Owners Association) pledged strong support to SEF and suggested the possibility of naming SEF as the charity of their choice.. Bhindhi Jewelers, Manisha Jewelers and D’mart donated ornaments and decoration items for use in the silent auction at the event which raised over $2000.

It was not all about SEF, as the event served the audience with fun & lively entertainment from Eastern winds and Hala dance. Normally, 10 PM in the night would be time to retire for the day but not in the banquet hall on Saturday evening. “Pretty Woman” tunes from movie “Kal ho na ho” woke up the crowd with the fast beat getting the young and old alike on the dance floor. The crowd danced away into the night with fun and a sense of great accomplishment of raising more than $200,000 towards the SEF hospital projects.

 

For pictures of this event, please visit:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=ngmjduh.768am7f5&x=1&y=5nicoq
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=ngmjduh.77os5m0h&x=1&y=qftm4y