I am in 8th grade and I live in Fremont, CA. I visit India quite often. I love India but I hate walking around on those streets full of garbage.
After watching the cleanliness campaigns of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, I also decided to do something about it.
A couple weeks before Diwali I decided to do a project to raise funds that can help in cleaning a part of India. I love art projects. My mom and I decided to create different types of floating diyas and sell them for the project. We started with few and we got a fantastic response. So I started making more after school hours and during the weekends.
I set a goal of raising $1000, although I did not have much time. We had to plan quickly and get raw material. My mom and I got lots of raw material at last minute. We called up a vendor in India and asked him to ship some material overnight.
Slowly the project started taking shape. We started getting ideas for more elaborate designs. Initially we started selling them to people whom we know. With their good feedback we had our first booth at a Garba Night hosted by GCA (Gujarati Cultural Association) and SSF (Small Steps Foundation). We posted photos of the diyas on my very own Facebook page. We started getting orders from friends out of town. We did a small exhibition and sold some in my school too.
I am happy to share that I have raised about $1,199.50 with the support of my friends and family.
Khushi Shah
