Toybank goes to Ratnagiri!

IBM's On Demand Community(ODC) in Pune has various initiatives running under it's umbrella. Help and Educate is one of them. Through this initiative IBM's employee volunteers work with Shri Vithalrao Joshi Charitable (VJC) Trust in providing health, support and education to the people of Dervan, a remote village in the interiors of Konkan region of Maharashtra.

Help and Educate kick-started the year with a toy distribution event at  VJC Trust's English Medium School in Dervan on 30th Jan. The toys collected through ODC's toy collection drive from Nov 2009 were distributed to children from Dervan.

Participating Volunteers were Abhay A Ratnaparkhi, Balamurugan Subramaniam, Dhandayudhabani and Rakeshkumar D Sahu, with  Avni Pattani taking the lead.

Here's what Avni Pattani who's also a Toybanker had to say about the event -

"IBM volunteers started from  Pune in the early morning on 30th Jan for Dervan situated in Ratnagiri District. Volunteers reached the school in Dervan around noon in the vehicle provided by trust. On reaching the school Mr.Praful Godbole welcomed the volunteers and arranged for refreshments. After a quick lunch the volunteers interacted with the high school Principal Ms. Parkar, pre-primary school Principal Ms.Shirodkar and other staff members to understand children's interests and also to explain the objective of the distribution event.

The toys collected as a part of collection drive at IBM were distributed amongst 129 children from the pre-primary school. Volunteers interacted with the kids and involved them in activities such as reciting poems/ rhymes, playing games, story-telling, drawing and dancing. One group of children from senior kg also performed a dance for the volunteers. After playing with the children for about one and a half hour volunteers distributed  toys and biscuit packets to every child. Both the children and the volunteers had a very memorable day!

We would like to thank the Shri Vithalrao Joshi Charitable Trust management for providing us an opportunity to carry out Toy Distribution at the school and prompt arrangement of transport and meals for volunteers.

We would like to thank Pune ODC and Toybank Team for all the support in wrapping toys and managing logistics .

Help & Educate also thanks each volunteer for enthusiasm and valuable time spent with the children."

Here are a few glimpses of the event: http://picasaweb.google.co.in/helpneducate .