04-24-2007, 09:15 PM
The Shankara Jayanthi celebrations went quite well with a full-day schedule of events.
The idea of celebrating Shankara Jayanthi started in 2004 December when a friend and I came up with the idea of having a small pooja to celebrate Shankara Jayanthi as we both adore and follow Sri Shankaracharya's works.
Then I thought of broadening the pooja concept to include the local community. The idea is to involve the kids & teenagers. My observation shows that the first year is by far the toughest one, it is to get the people to buy in to the concept, but after that people themselves look forward to it, and once it becomes a well-oiled machine, there is not much of an effort in terms of participation or donations. (This time we had a 'waitlist' for people who wished to participate and present in the 7.5 hour long program.)
The idea behind Shankara Jayanthi celebration is to spread the awareness of Sri Shankaracharya's teachings to all communities, and also to get the kids and teens to learn more and more about the life and teachings of Acharya Shankara. This effort is both effective, and satisfying.
We hope to invite the Mayor / City council for the events next year. That's pretty much the gist of it.
The idea of celebrating Shankara Jayanthi started in 2004 December when a friend and I came up with the idea of having a small pooja to celebrate Shankara Jayanthi as we both adore and follow Sri Shankaracharya's works.
Then I thought of broadening the pooja concept to include the local community. The idea is to involve the kids & teenagers. My observation shows that the first year is by far the toughest one, it is to get the people to buy in to the concept, but after that people themselves look forward to it, and once it becomes a well-oiled machine, there is not much of an effort in terms of participation or donations. (This time we had a 'waitlist' for people who wished to participate and present in the 7.5 hour long program.)
The idea behind Shankara Jayanthi celebration is to spread the awareness of Sri Shankaracharya's teachings to all communities, and also to get the kids and teens to learn more and more about the life and teachings of Acharya Shankara. This effort is both effective, and satisfying.
We hope to invite the Mayor / City council for the events next year. That's pretty much the gist of it.