Namaste all,

Sewa International, Atlanta Chapter has been working with Cumming Elementary School for approximately 10 months now. We started our partnership over the summer when volunteers Manika ji Singh, Divyaraj ji Singh, Bharat Singh, Amod ji Sureka, Raj Sureka, Jay Sureka, Swadesh ji Katoch joined special education teacher Mrs. Anna Doll in making an outdoor community vegetable garden for all the students of the school. It is estimated that more than 13 million children live in food insecure homes. Growing food in community and home gardens can provide people with more access to fresh vegetables. The school’s community garden teaches the children one way that they can have easy access to inexpensive, fresh, healthy food.

Since September of 2018, every second and fourth Saturday 15-25 Sewa volunteers spend three hours of their morning with first and second grade students from this same elementary school. They read together, students write in their journals, and they do math problems. The high school students are also exposing these elementary school students to STEM experiments and projects and encourage physical activity thru yoga and soccer. The children are offered a healthy snack before going home. In February, the students had a special guest, a dietician from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, attend the Saturday morning tutoring program and talk to them about healthy habits. They learned about the sugar content in soda, Gatorade, juice and water and understood why water is the best drink for their body. They learned the importance of making half their plate fruits and vegetables and why they should stay active and limit screen time.

In line with this goal of exposing students to healthy habits, Mrs. Anna Doll keeps an indoor garden along with the outdoor vegetable garden. Sewa volunteers Siya Katoch, Abhinay Sharma, Nithin Reddy and Abhishek Pasupuleti spent the last tutoring session working with Mrs. Doll on a green house project which she leads for the school. The 4 volunteers had taken out all the old lights and put new LED lights together and put them on the frame.

Mrs. Doll is very appreciative of all that the Sewa volunteers have done for Cumming Elementary School, whether it be tutoring and direct involvement with the first and second grade students, or indirectly helping the students by supporting the outdoor garden and indoor greenhouse. She was told by Sewa volunteer Abhinay Sharma, “Just ask Sewa and you’ll have dozens of people to help!”

A Big AUM to all the volunteers!