Early on that unforgettable Monday morning, as Hurricane Harvey brought the Barker Reservoir's waters up his front yard and then under the front door, Gitesh Desai knew his own recovery efforts would have to be sidetracked.

Desai's neighborhood, Fleetwood, sits in the flood pool of the reservoir on Memorial Drive in the Energy Corridor. Most of the houses in the subdivision took on at least 7 feet of water and two weeks after the storm had passed, Fleetwood was still inaccessible to its residents.

"The first floor is completely gone, everything I possessed was destroyed," Desai said. "My books, my memories, irreplaceable pictures and albums - it's all gone."

Desa is president of the Houston chapter of Sewa International, a nonprofit that participates in disaster rescue and recovery worldwide.

Sewa means selfless service - service above self - in Sanskrit.

In the storm's immediate aftermath, the 63-year-old coordinated Sewa's partnership with 40 organizations in the Indian community. Sewa recruited more than 1,200 volunteers who logged nearly 45,000 work-hours, brought in 21 truckloads of supplies, set up a 24-hour helpline and rescued 687 people from floodwaters.

Vijay Pallod, a leader in the local Indian community, met Desai in 1993, during relief efforts for the Latur earthquake in India. That earthquake destroyed 52 villages, killed nearly 10,000 people and injured 30,000 more.

"I was very impressed with his dedicated volunteer work to help the community," Pallod said. "He is well-respected as a true leader in the community."

As in the earthquake and countless other natural disasters since, Pallod said, Desai emerged as a community leader when Harvey struck.

"He never talked about his own problems and being away from his home, but he was ready to listen to others' problems," Pallod said.

Three months have passed since Desai's home was flooded and he is still living in a hotel. He has plans to repair his home, Desai said, but the execution is going slowly.

Though Houston has seen more than one rainstorm since Harvey and life has returned to normal for many, Desai and Sewa continue to help rebuild the lives of those who lost everything.

The organization's work is mostly based in Rosharon, Desai said. It has raised $450,000 to aid in relief efforts.

"It's hard to describe how hard it is," Desai said. "But it doesn't break our spirit. That's why we keep doing it."

Deepawali in Nepal

In Nepal, Deepawali is celebrated as Tihar. It is a five-day-long festival celebrated during Yama-Panchak which starts from Dhan-Teras and lasts up to Bhai-Dooj. The five-day festival is considered to be of great importance as it shows reverence to not just the humans and the Gods, but also to the animals like crows, cows and dogs who maintain an intense relationship with humans.

AT GIRLS HOSTEL IN CHITWAN DISTRICT

Girls staying in the Hostel in Bharatpur, Chitwan,  merrily celebrated the beautiful festival 'Deepawali'. This hostel is funded by Bay Area, CA coalition of Livermore Temple, Indian Association of San Joaquin County (IASJC), Indian Association of Sacrameto through Sewa International, USA. In addition, IASJC is sponsoring 4 children annually under the Sewa’s Sponsor a Child program for their upkeep.

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After its hugely successful Nrityameva Jayate event in 2016, the Boston Chapter of Sewa International hosted a similar event at the Keefe Technical School in Framingham, MA on November 5, 2017, for its fifth annual fundraiser. Over 825 people attended the event which raised over $45,000 to be used for various community service projects of Sewa International such as rehabilitating victims of Hurricane Harvey, Irma, and Maria, feeding the hungry, yoga for humanity and education of underserved children.

The Nrityameva Jayate’17 program was organized to promote volunteerism and create awakening among people to serve those in need. 286 Students from 19 leading dance schools of the New England area participated in a dance competition with spellbinding performances of Classical, Folk and Bollywood dance forms captivating the audience for seven hours. In addition, 15 students of music enthralled the audience with musical performances. The program received overwhelming support from the community.

The program began with a melodious rendition of invocation mantras by students of Poorna Chandrika School of Music and ‘deep prajwallan’ (Light of lamp) by judges for the event. The buoyant emcee Ms. Yogita Miharia welcomed the audience, the chief guest; Dr. Udit Batra, dance & music participants, the dance Gurus and distinguished Judges. She kept the audience engaged and appealed to them to generously donate to Sewa International for supporting the service projects. Ms. Taejasvi Narayan, and Ms. Raji Jakkam introduced to the audience each of the 41 entries in the event.

The program was arranged in four age groups. While distributing prizes to event’s youngest participants in the 6-9 year’s age group, Shri Ashwani Garg, VP of Administration in the national team of Sewa International, explained to the audience how the act of Sewa is a Yagna and thanked each dance participant and audience for contributing their ‘Ahuti’ (offering) in this yagna. He also thanked Mahadev Group, a financial advisory practice of Ameriprise Financial for their continued support to Sewa International. Shri Srinivas Bachu, President of the Telugu Association of Greater Boston, and guest of honor for the event, distributed prizes to winners in the 10-13 year’s age group. He talked about the importance of community service. The performances by participants in 13-17 year’s age group invited great applause from the audience. Ms. Priya Rathod, Director of Nursing Services at Amrit Sabha Adult Day Care Center and Guest of honor for the event, distributed prizes to the winners in this category. She shared with the audience how Amrit Sabha has had a long-standing partnership with Sewa International and conveyed her deep appreciation for the work done by Sewa’s volunteers.

This was followed by high-octane dance performances by the adult age group which mesmerized the audience with their talent. During the concluding ceremony, Sewa volunteer Mr. Subba Raju Datla talked about Sewa’s rescue, relief, and rehabilitation efforts to aid victims of Hurricane Harvey, Irma and Maria. He introduced the chief guest of the event Dr. Udit Batra, CEO MilliporeSigma a Life Sciences company of Merck KGaA. Dr. Batra congratulated all the Sewa volunteers for organizing such a successful event and explained that Sewa means performing service without expecting anything in return. Dr. Batra presided over the concluding ceremony and distributed prizes to the winners in the adult age group.

Sewa also hosted Rangoli and Henna (Mehandi) competitions during the event and several people participated in them. The program ended with a vote of thanks by Sewa volunteer Dr. Pramod Pandey who expressed gratitude to every attendee and participant in the event for supporting the Sewa’s cause. He invited the audience to join the Sewa team and become an active part of this historic movement.  

EVENT PICTURES (courtsey Subroto Mukherjee Photography )

Sewa International, Chicago chapter hosted Rishte Nate - a spectacular musical show on Nov 4 at Swaminarayan Mandir, IL.  The program was organized to raise funds for the victims of the recent disaster - Harvey, IRMA and Maria, and, Sponsor a Child - a program that sponsors the education of underprivileged chldren in India and Nepal.

Award winning participants from the musical school Swara Sadhana, and five dance schools Swaralaya, Utkalaa, Dancing Petals, Indian Dance School, and Nartan gave a spell bound performance leaving the audience mesmerized.

Watch report on TV Asia

On 24th September , Sewa USA Milwaukee Chapter volunteers, also known as Milwaukee Diyas organised "Adopt-A-Highway" community service event to clean litter along Wisconsin Highway 190 also called as Capitol Drive.

13 middle school youth volunteers & 3 adults volunteered to clean this stretch in 2 hours on a Sunday morning in scorching heat.

A feedback session followed the activity and all youth gave amazing reasons and responses to why they wanted to do community service. Some responses : 
1. "It feels good that's why I do community service" 
2. "It's the right thing to do , hence I do community service" 
3. "I need community ser ice hours for school hence I do it and also it's a nice thing to do" 
4. "If I were home, my mom would have made me study , so instead I volunteered to do community service and hang with my age friends" 
5."I don't know" 
6." I just like to do community service and hence I did it" 
7. " My mom told me to do it hence I did it" 

Everyone had a snack and showed interest in doing more such community service activities.

Sewa means doing service without any expectations . Join us by liking our page and telling your friends. More events planned for the community we live in.

Enjoy some photos :

https://www.facebook.com/MilwaukeeDiyas/posts/512167309137888

Sewa Cleveland organized "Yoga as Medicine" - a workshop for yoga trainers, physicians,  and other medical professionals seeking to be well-informed about yoga therapy as a safe, non-invasive alternative for health improvement.

After the workshop, participants were able to understand potential use of yoga as therapy and to consider further education and application in healthcare practice.

Sewa volunteers Drs., Rupesh Raina, Preeti Gandhi, and Reema Gulati organized the event at Metro General Hospital - a leading inner city hospital in Cleveland. Participants received 3.5 Continuing Medical Education credits (CME) - thanks to the efforts of Drs. Raina and Gulati. 

The workshop was well attended by 80 enthusiastic participants including 65 physicians.  The indomitable Sewa Cleveland Operations team of Viji Vijay, Anil Kumar Singh and Padma Jambunath under the able leadership of Dr. Hira Fotedar executed the conference logistics and marketing making event of Saturday, Aug 5.

Sewa International USA conducted a family workshop on College readiness for

current high school students and their parents on March 5, 2016 at Radha Madhav

Society Duluth, GA. This event was offered free as a service to the community. This

workshop was the part of series of workshops planned under the family services

project of Sewa International in Atlanta and other cities in the US.

Here is the video clips of sewausa volunteers working with the kids on 01/31/2017.  Public relations manager Kathy Stagmer also visited and volunteered to help kids with their maths.