Guest Charlie Dooley with L to R Girdhar Sharma, Dr. Sharad Parikh and Jiwan Singla
ST. LOUIS: Mahatma Gandhi Cultural Center (MGC), in collaboration with the India Association of St. Louis (IAS) recently hosted a fund-raising dinner at its facility in St. Louis. The event helped raise $50,000 for its various activities.
The fund raising efforts were for the center’s structural maintenance, up-keep and renovation. This is the first time that India Association of St. Louis collaborated with MGC to help in organizing a fund-raising dinner.
The event started at 6pm with cocktails and snacks in a social hour in the lower level of MGC, where community members mingled with each other and also interacted with special guest Charlie Dooley. The dinner event started on the upper level of MGC at 7pm with opening remarks by President of MGC, Jiwan Singla and President of IAS Dr. Girdhar Sharma.
Drs. Sharad Parikh and Vijaya Kumar Buddhiraju served as the Masters of Ceremony for the event. They articulated the history and current state of MGC to the audience of about 250.
MGC and IAS felicitated one of its founder members Dr. Kamal and Mrs. Sudha Yadav by presenting them with a plaque and bouquet. This was followed by pledges and fund-raising where attendees actively participated in support of MGC.
Dinner started at 8pm which was followed by a live musical performance, “Surmayee Shaam” by Nishaad group. Extraordinary vocal and instrumental talents of this local musical group led by Vijayraj Kamat and Anand Navadikar, captured and thoroughly entertained the audience for over two hours with golden oldies Hindi movie songs. The event was a grand success and elicited an outpour of support and appreciation from the community.
MGC is a not-for-profit community center that was built by the joint efforts of various Indian-American community members with major contributions from Drs. Uday Dash and Kamal Yadav at that time.
The center was inaugurated couple decades ago by then Ambassador of India to the United States, Dr. Abid Hussain, on August 19, 1990. Since then, MGC has been a very popular community center that is increasingly being used by the local Indian-American community of the greater St. Louis region at a nominal rental price for their personal and/or public events.
MGC also serves as election center and hosts health fairs, visa camps etc. This dinner was organized to raise funds for center’s structural maintenance, up-keep and renovation. This is the first time that India Association of St. Louis collaborated with MGC to help in organizing a fund-raising dinner.
Ashwin Patel
