Sewa Day 2014: International Day of Volunteering Celebrated Across USA

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Sewa International Houston after Galveston Beach Cleanup on Sewa Day 2014

HOUSTON: Sewa Day is a project of Sewa International. It is an international day of volunteering where thousands of good-hearted people across the world come together to perform service and experience the joy of giving. By participating in this collective endeavor, we hope that the seeds of Sewa (Sanskrit for ‘selfless service’) are watered so that acts of kindness and public service are performed more often.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron is among many celebrities and dignitaries who endorsed Sewa Day. At the awards ceremony, he said: “I think Sewa Day is something really, really, special and valuable. As Prime Minister you see amazing things and get to meet amazing people but I think the thing that gives me greater pleasure than anything else I do is seeing these amazing examples of social action in our communities”.

Vivek Oberoi, famous Bollywood star and brand ambassador for Sewa Day 2014 said, “I try to reach out and tell people that this (Sewa) is incredible. I think Sewa Day is a great platform and that it should be a celebration of humanity”.Sewa Day www.sewaday.org is being celebrated in over 20 locations in the US, as well as in UK, Australia, India and many other countries. It is a day of pure service and no fund-raising is allowed to take place. We invite the community to join us again next year and be part of the movement!

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Bollywood star Vivek Oberoi speaks about Sewa Day

Sewa International USA is proud to be a part of this worldwide initiative to give back to our communities, and we thank all our volunteers, sponsors and participating organizations.

The objective was to bring together a diverse group of volunteers representing professional bodies, associations, linguistic, temple, spiritual, social and cultural organizations for a day of community service. Hundreds of volunteers of different ages and backgrounds from Sewa International and partner organizations worked on a variety of projects at locations across the country to make a difference in their communities.

Sewa day event was celebrated in a lot of cities across America. In San Diego 80 volunteers gave their time and efforts at Feeding America. Bay area volunteers helped out at the local food Bank.

Volunteers at Portland Oregon helped out at the Scappoose retreat at the Vedanta society, while volunteers in Denver Colorado helped clean the temple in Brighton.Chicago area volunteers helped senor citizens in Bhutanese refugee community also organized free workshops on meditation.Bloomington Illinoi volunteers helped in Food Banks.Volunteers in Atlanta, Georgia cleaned up and maintained a neighborhood roads in Cobb County.

Sewa volunteers in Cleveland, Ohio cleaned up a community vegetable garden at Oxcart Pantry . In Akron, Ohio, Sewa volunteers distributed boxes of warm clothing and accessories to a homeless shelter and to the Bhutanese refugee community.

Among the many projects held in New Jersey this year, volunteers at New Brunswick  delivered lunches for a local food shelter (Elijah’s Promise).Sewa volunteers at Boston, MA cooked dinner for 300 hungry people at the Cor Unam Meal Center in Lawrence. In Delaware, volunteers prepared and served food for a couple of homeless shelters.

Sewa Day Event in Houston
Sewa Houston celebrated the Sewa Day with the cleaning the Galveston Beach in association with Adopt a Beach foundation.

Started in 1986, Adopt a Beach is a state-wide coastal beach clean up program which has allowed more than 465,000 volunteers to clean up more than 8,900 tons of trash upon the Texas beaches.
Their motto? “Everybody loves the beach but not everybody respects the beach.”

Their mission is to raise public awareness, educate citizens, and generate public support for state, national, and international action action to clean up coastal waters. They hold several beach cleanups throughout the year – and by helping in this cause, our volunteers were able to help further the effort towards pollution-free beaches.

Sewa International volunteers volunteer every month through the Sewa Local Events, but this event was different because of its scale and also the fact we were part of a much bigger event Sewa Day!
Our 45 volunteers’ arrived at a starting point to receive their instructions upon where to go. Then, they traveled to Jamaica Beach – their assigned location – where gloves and trash bags were distributed. After nearly 3 hours of picking up plastic, glass shards, and other debris off the beach, the volunteers all finally came to a stopping point and took a small lunch of bhel puri and milk.

Through the accumulation of their hardwork and spirit, the volunteers were able to collaboratively rid the beach of bagful loads of garbage, and thus made it a cleaner, safer, and happier place for people to enjoy. In all Sewa Volunteers put in 135 hours of work together to clean their beach.

About Sewa International
Sewa International www.sewausa.org is a 501 (c)(3) Hindu faith-based charitable nonprofit service organization that works in the areas of disaster relief/rehab and development (education, healthcare, women’s empowerment, child welfare, rural and tribal welfare, and refugee support). Sewa serves regardless of race, color, religion, sex, age, disability or national origin. The Sewa movement works with communities in need, and is active in 20 countries including USA, Canada, India, and the UK. For further information, contact sewaday@sewausa.org or  708-USA-SEWA.