Now lets help someone else for a change....

I have been thinking about writing for this for a while now. Finally I got the moment to put down my thoughts...

I want to send this message specially to people like me, who have already graduated from school( yeah thats wat they call here, even if u do your masters, it is still called that you are going to school...;)) and are working currently...I think we have had enough months to earn money and save a little bit for a good cause.....There are two things I absolutely love doing....

KIVA
According to its website..Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.
I love this concept...Basically you register at the site and then you find people you are interested in loaning money to..You can look people up by the country, or the work they do or the amount of loan needed or the repayment terms. They are basically enterpreneurs in underdeveloped countries, who cannot apply for loans from the government..You basically loan to them and they repay your loan back...There is very little chance of delinquency, so in most cases you get your money back, depending on the repayment term the enterpreneur has...With the money you get back, you can either lend it to someone else or even withdraw it....I loved this concept and have been a fan of KIVA since last few months...I encourage all of you who are capable to spare few hundred dollars to visit their site at http://www.kiva.org and start lending....You can start with as little as $25....

Humane Society of the United States
According to their website....The Humane Society of the United States is the nation's largest and most effective animal protection organization—backed by 11 million Americans, or one in every 28

Their mission is Celebrating Animals, Confronting Cruelty...

I initially joined them when someone sent me an email regarding the cruel treatment of animals and below was the website to sign the petition...I have been excited for the work they do ever since. Recently they had worked to prevent the killing of seal babies in canada...There are couple of things you can do here..You can sometimes donate some amount, can start with as little as $5, at other times, you can help by signing the petition or sending letters to your US representative( Don't worry you don't have to write actual letter, there is a written letter, you just need to sign in with your name) to take actions against the cruelty of animals....Whether you are vegeterian or a non vegeterian, I am sure you would not prefer the cruel treatment of animals...If you are interested let me know and I can forward you some of the emails from Humane Society......
http://www.hsus.org/about_us/

Together we can acheive peace and happiness in this world..........

Volunteering at National Rebuilding Together

25th April was the National Rebuilding Day where University of Michigan, Dallas Alumni Club decided to volunteer. Being part of the Alumni Club, I found out about the opportunity and was quite excited since this was going to be my first volunteer work experience in the USA. One of my friends Nileshbhai and I registered as a volunteer for the UM Alumni club. It was a saturday morning and we were suppose to assemble at the place around 8 am, so I woke up early quite excited about the opportunity. My excitement had two reasons, first it was an unselfish work which I would be doing, that would make someone happy and the other reason was to meet fellow wolverines. Its been almost three years since I move to Dallas, Texas from Ann Arbor, Michigan, but I miss Michigan a lot since I have some of the loveliest memories there...

The house we were assigned belonged to a 90- year old lady. She was very nice and friendly. The week before some other group had helped clean up the interior rooms and organize things inside. Our assignment was cleaning from the outside like the car garage, the backyard, painting the house exteriors, weathering the windows etc. We assembled in front of the house around 8 am and introduced each other and started working. Initially we started with garage, there was hardly any space to walk into the backyard since the garage was full of stuff. We threw away lot of items and kept some, which were her fond memories like a rocking chair of her grandmother etc.

Next when there was enough space to reach the backyard, we went there and started working on it. It looked like it had not been taken care of for years..The grass and the trees were overgrown. Some of us started cutting the trees while others picked up the twigs and big branches so that it would be easier for the lawn mower to work.

It was fun, but scary at times when we encountered small snakes on our paths...Finally we managed to clean up everything in the backyard and it looked beautiful....completely different from what we had started on....

The next work for painting the exterior house. We needed to apply the primer initially and then once the primer was settled for an hour, we could start painting. We divided into two groups, one group was working on the front part and the other group was working on the back side.

Over the door, it was difficult to reach from the ladder, so someone climbed on the roof to get to it..The enthusiasm of people to work and help was tremendous. It was a pleasure to be a part of such an enthusiastic group..

Around noon all of us were hungry and were waiting for the pizza which had been ordered. We ate the pizza and in the meantime, the primer had dried so we started the painting operation. I painted the entrance door and the lady came out to show us one of her pictures as a flight attendant. It was a beautiful pic.

Some of the volunteers were working on painting the floor in one of the rooms where the carpet had been peeled off..We were almost done, when someone remembered we needed to paint the fireplace. So we started working on the fireplace...It was about 3:30 pm and we were done, with paints on our jeans, hands and t-shirts....The house looked beautiful and totally different from the morning when we started working on it.

It was a great satisfaction to be helpful to somebody in this way....I have decided to look for more volunteering opportunities in the future.

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