AAHOA: Partners-In-Service Now Four Years Strong

Yes, it was that time of the year. March Madness!! And no, we are not speaking of basketball. We are totally talking about the annual AAOHA convention. By coincidence (or not) it was held in San Antonio, where a week later the "Final Four" teams were playing for the NCAA championship (we had neither the tickets nor the money to stay back and enjoy the games).

So once more we packed our bags (with SEF brochures and donation cards) and off we went. This year the team consisted of Anju Desai, Smita Patel, Divyogi Patel, yours truly and a very special volunteer- in-training Khushali Shah.

Khushali is a junior at UCLA and a new volunteer in SEF. She was planning on spending her spring break in Cancun dancing away the nights but her parents would not pay for it (just kidding). Instead SEF paid for her ticket to San Antonio, so that she could spend her days standing at the SEF booth and educating over 4, 000 AAOHA attendees on the benefits of donating to our worthy cause (tax deduction and personal happiness). To tell the truth, we needed her so that we could reduce our group's mean age and look a little hipper.

Our battle cry was "Remember the Alamo". Sorry wrong era! It really was "Remember the poor blind of India". And on this battlefront we did well. AAHOA has been a true friend of our cause raising about $100K for the Anand Hospital. Their leadership team had visited our construction site earlier this year, envisioning our dream becoming a reality. And they were generous again this year, with valuable stage time, membership in the "Passport Program" and an heart full appeal on our behalf in their conference book.

The AAHOA members came through for our hospital. Nilaxiben, Ajitbhai and Ashwinbhai generously gave us $25,000. We also got pledges for additional $35,000. But most importantly, we had fun talking to many people about building our hospital in Anand, and eradicating curable blindness in Gujarat. Our heartfelt thanks to AAHOA members and the leadership team (Mukesh, Danny, Ash and Tarun) for their continued support and their generous hospitality in the Alamo town.

See you all in Washington DC next year.