Good Samaritans help Chennai Children’s Choir

They managed to raise Rs. 33 lakh to fund the kids’ travel in less than two months, and have reached the States, “Tired yet excited for what’s to come,” said Sriram, founder and director of Nalandaway Foundation, which started the choir. 

It wasn’t before they created quite a spectacle that the group boarded the flight — at the Chennai airport, the 21-member CCC broke out into Vande Mataram, cheerily and full of smiles. Upon their arrival, Sriram says that food turned out to be one of the crucial challenges they faced. 

“Our group comprises 21 children, two trainers, four parents and five coordinators. We’re here for a span of ten days so we were concerned about procuring meals that are healthy, less-expensive and most importantly something that Chennai kids would be comfortable with,” he said. They tried hard to reach out to Indian restaurants and home caterers, but all the options were working out to be expensive. 

“Finally, after a wild goose chase, the Venkateshwara Temple in Fairfax outside Washington DC, graciously accepted to serve lunch and dinner at subsidised prices,” he said with a relieved sigh. He went on to add how the heroes in this whole exercise are the volunteers who will be picking up and delivering food to their hotel. 

He said, “Seven of them have agreed to pick up and deliver food over the next 10 days and we have no idea who these people are! These are random strangers who have volunteered to help us, all of them driven by a sense of compassion, empathy and the shared identity of being Indian.”