August 2020 – Newsletter

“If You Are Working on Something Exciting That You Really Care About, You Don’t Have To Be Pushed. The Vision Pulls You.” – Steve Jobs

Scorching temperatures, fires, power outages – August was indeed an eventful month! With all the unprecedented events that we faced, it was a wake-up call for us to be vigilant and have an emergency preparedness plan in place. Unfazed, our EnE volunteers continued to impress us with their steadfast commitment to serving their community. Dear Volunteers, you make us proud every day through your dedication and devotion to serving those in need! Keep up the good work!

We would also like to share exciting news with all of you. We are very pleased to announce that our grant request to Santa Clara county towards our “Nurturing Children and Strengthening Families” project for a low-income community in San Jose has been approved. We will soon receive a $15,000 grant from the county. With this grant, we will be able to provide learning & enrichment tools for students and families at VPU community. This was possible in part because of the extraordinary efforts of our team who burned the midnight oil to submit a proposal that carried us through three rounds of Board of Supervisors meetings and was approved in the first attempt. A BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE to: Alpa, Cecilia, Kavitha, Namrita, Pallabi, and Sanjay!

CONGRATULATIONS to all the members of E&E who go above and beyond the call of duty to give back to the community!

As always, we express our sincere gratitude to all our frontline professionals who continue to support us during our fight against COVID. Let’s support them and our community by wearing our masks, maintaining social distance, and acting responsibly.

Important Monthly Announcements:

• Volunteer Membership Renewals: We hope you have all renewed your memberships. 31st August was the last day to do so. If you haven’t renewed yet, please follow the following steps:
  • Fill the following Volunteer Contract/Waiver Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScrz95vHT19wAfMuClIGcl5fRdF1KXk2ZkcLlZeuks_cMJh2Q/viewform?c=0&w=1
  • You can make the donation by Zelle transfer (to avoid fees and 100%. comes to org) to: empowerandexcel.np@gmail.com or online (there is a processing fee) https://empowerexcel.org/donate/
  • Please see if you can get the company (through workplace) matching for the donation you are making. Do let us know so we can keep an eye
• Donating Stocks/Security to EnE: We are happy to announce that E&E is now accepting stocks/security donations. To help clarify a few questions that came our way, donating stocks is another option to donating money.
  When you sell appreciated stock, up to 37.1% is taxes. When you donate appreciated stock to E&E, E&E keeps 100% and you receive the full market value dedication. If you want to donate stocks, please provide your securities broker with the following information regarding E&E :
  Account Name: Empower And Excel
  Brokerage Firm: eTrade.com
  DTC Number: 0385
  Account Number: 4775-8789
  Tax ID Number: 47-3656395
• Volunteer Appreciation Event is canceled and we will inform you of the date and time to pick up your certificates: Stay tuned! We will update you soon.
• Volunteer Hours Recording: Please make sure you continue to record your volunteering hours by logging into our new system.
• Presidential Volunteer Service Award (PVSA: To learn more about hours required to earn PVSA awards in each age group, go to: https://www.presidentialserviceawards.gov/eligibility
• Shopping on Amazon: Please use the following link to shop on Amazon.com: https://smile.amazon.com/ch/47-3656395. When you shop using this link, Amazon will donate a portion of the purchase price to EnE.
• Stay tuned to EnE’s new website at: https://empowerexcel.org/

Now for a Sneak Peak into Our August 2020 Activities:

Congratulations to Our Outstanding Volunteers of 2019!

Thank you for your Commitment.

Congratulations to Santhosh, Tanisha and Arun for being volunteers of the year with most number of hours in your respective age categories.

VOLUNTEER OF THE MONTH: ABHINAV BALLA

A big shout out to our volunteer Abhinav Balla who gave serious thought to our problem of not being able to start online tutoring for low-income community students in summer because of lack of devices and Internet access. He started reaching out to family friends and pestered his dad to have a talk at his workplace. To his dad’s surprise, his office was very impressed with Abhinav’s efforts. A few weeks later they donated 12 excellent condition laptops. Big shout out to Intermedia.net for playing a great social responsibility role and encouraging Abhinav’s efforts. Very proud of you Abhi for taking initiative and being a role model.

Baked Goodies Project

• We kicked off our baked goodies project in August. Our volunteers bake brownies, cookies and muffins for Priya Living Senior Community, Westmont Senior living, and Family Supportive Housing (FSH), a shelter in San Jose. Every Saturday, we provide 300 baked goods bags to these various centers. We bake these items on a rotational basis as follows: Week 1 – Cookies, Week 2 – Brownies, Week 3 – Muffins.
• Our East bay volunteers have been baking goodies every week with a lot of love and enthusiasm for friends on the East bay streets, for seniors at retirement communities, and for guests at a family resource center.
• We received amazing feedback from these communities for our baked goodies. They are very happy to receive these goodies and wholeheartedly appreciate the efforts of our volunteers. To quote a few messages:
  • “Thank you so much for your continued generosity and thank you for all of the baked goodies! They have been a huge help. The brownies are always a hit because of how soft they are.” – from FSH shelter
  • “Love, Blessings and Thank you to our young bakers.” – from Priya Living
• Thanks to all our East and South bay bakers for the month of August: Aashka, Abhinav, Aditi, Aishwari, Aishwarya, Akshat, Amrutha, Amulya, Anisha, Anuraag, Anoushka, Anvitha, Anya, Arun, Avi, Kai, Kartik, Kavya, Bhavya, Ishan, Madhu, Maaya, Meha, Neil, Neha, Nikita,Pranav, Ravi, Reeva, Ridhan, Ridhima, Rishab, Ruhan, Sai, Sanjala, Santosh, Sasha, Selva, Srikar, Srita, Suraj, Swara, Trisha, Vibha, and Yanik.
• Thank you to all who helped drop off these baked goodies at the various centers: Arun, Radhika (Arun’s mom), Kiran (Arun’s broher), and Ishan.
• If you are interested in participating in this weekly baking project, here are a few guidelines:
  • Please sign up in multiple of 25 bags in the following google sheet:
  • South bay volunteers sign-up here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Kqgh7CHKskFF19bqky4nnIfo7YHcPkOhgpW7QJEbfjQ/edit?usp=drivesdk
  • East bay volunteers can sign-up here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iv8hS3c2Z4T1JCSBvboIXwEyIJyzLaAQAuTm7sGsQZA/edit#gid=0
  • Please note that each sign up is for 25 bags of baked goods:
    • For cookies, each bag should include three to four regular size cookies per bag.
    • For muffins, each bag should include two regular size muffins per bag. Regular size muffin is about 2″ in diameter.
    • For brownies, each bag should include three brownies. Each brownie should be approximately 1.5″X3″ in dimension.
  • Drop-off time is Saturdays between 11am – 1pm, at one of the following locations:
    • Santa Clara: 143 Claremont Ave, Santa Clara (Arun)
    • Evergreen: 3576 Rue Chene Dor, San Jose (Ishan)
• Please use the E&E baked goods project label to specify the type of goodies and your first name. E&E baked goods label can be found in the sign-up sheet.
• If you use brown paper lunch bags to pack the goodies, please add a piece of wax paper at the bottom as a grease barrier.
• Make the packing as compact as possible for easier delivery/ and drop-off.
• Login 3 hours for 25 bags of baked goods. Here are some quick recipes if you would like to bake from scratch:
• Chocolate chip cookies: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchen/chocolate-chip-cookies-recipe4-2011856
• Brownies: https://cookiesandcups.com/my-kids-favorite-brownies/
• If you would like to use prepared cookie dough or prepackaged brownie mixes, those are fine as well. Examples: Cookies: https://www.ralphs.com/p/nestle-toll-house-chocolate-chip-cookie-dough/0005000062231. This makes 24 cookies, so 3-4 cookies per bag. For packaged brownie mix, it depends on the size of your pan, it can be 8x8 pan, 8x9 pan, or 9x13 pan. If you use an 8x9 pan, it will make about 15 1.5″x3″ brownies => 5 bags of baked goods.

Online Classes

• Jeopardy for Seniors :Pranav came up with a very creative idea of hosting Jeopardy sessions for seniors at Priya Living. The first session was on Mahabharata and the seniors enjoyed it a lot. This kind of activity is not only great for their mental health but can also help their memory as well. It was heartwarming to see the seniors having so much fun. Great job Pranav! You can view the recording here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13wDyHfzUvng-BAkRC2cbizFOzRxMmS_4/view?usp=sharing
• Piano Lessons : Tanisha is enjoying teaching piano to her fellow volunteer.
• Spanish Lessons : Students are enjoying learning a new language from Kashvi.
• Presentation Skills Class : Yanik Dabke’s free online classes on Presentation Skills for middle school kids were very well received. The classes focused on how to make slides and speeches for presentation.
• Computer Programming Course : Lian Elsa Linton, an East bay volunteer led a well-planned and organized 10-day course for middle school students on computer programming concepts. Students enjoyed this course immensely.
• Python and Data Science Course : Sasha successfully conducted an online “Introductory to Python and Data Science” Course.
• 5k Training Session : Anuraag, an experienced marathon runner conducted a virtual 5k run training session to provide motivation and guidance on how to prepare for a marathon.

Meal Sponsorship and Pet Food Drive

• Dinner for JW House: Our volunteer Pillay family made fresh delicious meals for patients’ family members at JW House, a temporary housing facility for families facing medical crises. They made pineapple fried rice, shahi paneer, naan, cucumber-tomato salad with Italian seasoning & red wine vinegar, and brownies for dessert. They even accommodated a late request for doubling the amount of food. A hot home cooked meal at the end of a long fretful day at the hospital is exactly what those families need. Thank you very much, Pillay family.
• Lunch for Family Supportive Housing (FSH): Our volunteer families cooked delicious meals including sandwiches, pasta, fruit platter etc. for FSH. Kudos to the volunteer families for making such a positive impact during this difficult time! Thank you so much: Maaya and Meha Salva, Aanchal Vyavaharkar and Madhu Palivela.
  If you are interested in providing lunch to Family Supportive Housing (FSH) on King Road in San Jose:
  • EnE provides homemade meals to FSH every 2nd Sunday of the month.
  • Sign-up at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_XQ6lM4TSghMgi4pVZqReIMG_YHruULMZEvSnK4LlB4/edit#gid=0
  • The family signing up for a particular item, please add your choice along with your phone number to the signup sheet.
  • On the day you have signed up, you will have to drop-off at the Family Shelter at 11:30 AM.
  • Please do take pictures of food and let Sunitha Yellamanchi know once you have delivered at the shelter.
• Meal Sponsorship at ASHAJYOTHI: Thank you Nalluru family, Pallikonda family, and an anonymous donor family for sponsoring meals at AshaJyothi
• Meal Sponsorship at Sneha RIDES Thank you Kumar family, Peela family, and Balabhadra family for sponsoring meals at AshaJyothi
• *Cuenco de ❤️ (Bowls of Love) *: On behalf of EnE, Aditi and Vibha organized a Pet Food Drive to collect dog and cat food and monetary donations for pet food purchases for members of our community who are struggling to feed their pets during this difficult pandemic. This event was held to support The City of San Jose Animal Care Center’s FREE Pet Food Drive-thru Give-away held in August.