Community Service: Backpacks for Head Start SchoolsAugust 24, 2022 - Our members helped distribute 120 backpacks to Head Start schools in San Jose and Gilroy. Thank you to our members, Claudio Bono and Viji Bettadapura, for their generous donations to purchase these backpacks for distribution. Click here to read more.  |
Community Service: Back to School ProgramThis was a great project to kick start our Rotary year! West Valley Community Services needed volunteers to help them with their Back to School Program. Children would receive a backpack full of school supplies and new clothes for the school year.  Our members met at Westgate Mall in San Jose to begin their shift from 6:30 a.m. - 8:30 a.m. Rachel volunteered at the "Thank You" station while Anandi, Meenakshi, Krishna R., Max, and Tammy became Volunteer Chaperones to assist the children choose the clothes they needed for school. Old Navy was the designated store.
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Community Service: Our City ForestSome of our members volunteered at Our City Forest - Nursery Workday on August 13, 2022. They received a tour of the nursery and learned how to grow native plants and trees. After the tour, our members helped transplant 75 seedlings.  |
Community Service: Afghan Refugee ProjectThe Bedsheet Drive has come to an end! A special thank you to all who have donated and made this project a success. With a goal of 100 sheets, we were able to collect 84 sets. On April 30, it was time to drop off the bedsheets to the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in San Jose. Thank you to the following members: Shreya (who took the lead on this community service project), Anandi and her husband, Rachel, and Meena Kandukuri, President Elect 2022 - 2023. Michelle Borrego of IRC welcomed them.  International Rescue Committee's primary goals is providing assistance to refugees around the world who need to flee their home countries due to lack of safety. Our contribution as a Rotary club was to help provide bedsheets for Afghan refugees who are resettling in our area and need basic housing items. "Let us continue to come together and serve our community as best we can!" - Shreya Jani, Public Image Chair. |
Service Project: Heart of the ValleyDecember 15, 2021 - One of the most vulnerable groups that is most impacted by this long running pandemic is seniors. Many of them have been deprived of human interactions during this pandemic. Our club members expressed interest in helping out the senior community during our annual community service survey earlier this year. This holiday season, our club has teamed up with Heart of the Valley, a South Bay based nonprofit organization providing services to seniors in our community. Many of our club members signed up to be Santa’s Reindeers to deliver gifts to seniors in their neighborhood. We are grateful for this opportunity for our club to bring some cheer to seniors in our community. - Madhu Krishnan, Community Services Chair.   |
Service Project: Recycling and Donation EventNovember 13, 2021 – Our club partnered with the Rotary Club of East Palo Alto Bayshore with their Recycling and Donation event. This Donation Drive would generate funds for community projects in East Palo Alto. Some of our members volunteered to help load donated items to the Goodwill truck.  |
Community Service: Kids Against HungerJuly 18, 2021 – Krishna Reddy (Club President) and Shreya (member) had volunteered at the "Kids Against Hunger" event hosted by the Rotary Club of Silicon Andhra in Milpitas, California. They helped assemble “fortified soy / rice casserole style meals specifically formulated to meet the nutritional needs of starving children.” The meals are distributed to humanitarian organizations worldwide (e.g. Haiti, Philippines).   Photo courtesy: Rotary Club of Silicon Andhra The packing event was a success! Total participants: 150 Total Food Packaged: 16,000 Total hours: 1 hour 30 minutes Kids Against Hunger mission is to feed starving children and help end world hunger. |
SV Passport Rotary Supports West Valley Community Services Jeetu Lakhotia (Club President), Mahesh Nihalani (New Channels Chair), Viji Bettadapura (member) and her husband Satya, visited West Valley Community Services in Cupertino on May 6, 2021. They were there to present the check from our club that would help support WVCS' Back to School program. They were met by Josh Selo, Executive Director and Kohinoor Chakravarty, Director of Development and Communications. The Back to School program provides school-aged children a backpack full of supplies and new clothes for the school year. |
Sleeping Bags for East Palo Alto Senior CenterFebruary 4, 2021 - Jeetu Lakhotia (Club President) and Krishna Reddy (President-Elect and Community Services Co-Chair) had delivered another batch of sleeping bags for East Palo Alto Senior Center.  |
Helping Out the Farmworkers
The Farmworkers Caravan is sponsored by an organization called CasaQ and occurs on a regular basis to support families in Hollister, Salinas, and Watsonville. Through their clear instructions and multiple donation drop off locations, they made it easy to contribute. We enjoyed shopping for the requested supplies at Costco, thinking of the families that would be using these everyday necessities. We then dropped off the supplies at one of the three locations in San Jose, where there were smiling volunteers to help us load the supplies into large trucks. I felt drawn to support this project because of how, as Bay Area residents, we are the recipients of the hard work of farmworkers who live near us. |
Shoe Donations for Rotary Club of Silicon AndhraAugust 13, 2020: Club President Jeetu Lakhotia, board member Krishnakumari Reddy, and Shreya Jani donated shoes to the Rotary Club of Silicon Andhra for their Shoe Drive Fundraiser. They donated 160 pairs of shoes!  |
Medical and Surgical Supply Donations
SV Passport Club is passionate about it's projects to gather surplus medical and surgical supplies from local sources and get them to people in need around the world.
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