President's Corner
Namaskaru,
The KAOCA Committee is eagerly looking forward to organizing a variety of events in 2011 for the Bay Area Konkani community. The committee has adopted the theme of 'Community - Culture - Charity' for the year with the following goals.
- Expand the KOACA community by attracting new members and encouraging participation from all segments and generations of Konkanis.
- Actively promote Konkani culture via language, food and art programs at our events.
- Facilitate and encourage participation in charitable activities such as local volunteer organizations and also raise money for needy Konkani causes.
We conducted a survey to get feedback from the Konkani community to help plan the events for the year based on our theme. The results / choice(s) are as follows:
- To promote Konkani language and culture: Konkani language quiz, drama and food show
- Additional events for the year: Bingo and Karaoke Night, Dandiya and Sports Day
- People preferred to add a few extra dollars to the registration fee to raise money for needy Konkani causes
- Local Volunteering Effort: Soup Kitchen (Food distribution / sorting), Senior Center Help
Apart from the traditional events of Ugadi, Summer Picnic and Diwali, the additional events we undertake as well as the contents of the events will be based on the feedback we received from the community.
We had our first volunteer event on Dec 18th at the Family Giving Tree in Santa Clara. The response for the event was so overwhelming that we had to close registration within two days. We had many families with adults and kids alike participate in sorting and wrapping gifts for the needy local kids. This speaks volumes about the energy and willingness of the Konkani community to serve others in need. We are planning more such volunteer events. Our next event was the annual Ugadi function on March 26th at the Sunnyvale Hindu Temple. We again had an overwhelming response from the community and over 380 people attended the event that featured authentic Konkani food and a great entertainment program. This was followed by the Sports and Food Extravaganza day on June 4th where many members of the community displayed their game, singing and culinary skills. Towards the end of the summer we conducted the annual summer picnic on August 20th with a tropical theme -- members enjoyed the whole day event dancing to the rhythms of calypso music, participating in the hula dance, enjoying cricket/volleyball/races and savoring a great variety of food.
KAOCA has flourished as a large vibrant community of Konkanis outside India due to the continued support from the community. KAOCA is very much dependent on the active participation from all its members, timely payment of annual membership fees and generous contributions from donors. Hence we urge everyone in the community to lend their support in every possible way. The annual membership fees and donations from its patrons is used to offset facility and other costs. Members in turn enjoy discounted fees for all KAOCA events. Membership fees is $35 for family and $20 for single.
If you have any feedback or would like to add links to interesting articles please let us know by mailing to webmaster@kaoca.org. We will also continue to publish the electronic version of the KAOCA Panchadhika newsletter on our site. If you have any articles to contribute for Panchadhika, please mail them to webmaster@kaoca.org.
Our best wishes to everyone in the KAOCA community and we are working hard to make this an exciting year.
Warm Regards,
Rekha and Mohan