தென்னாடுடைய பெரியவா போற்றி
எந்நாட்டவர்க்கும் இறைவா போற்றி
சர்வக்ஞா சர்வவ்யாபி பெரியவா சரணம்
மாயப்பிறப்பறுக்கும் மஹா பெரியவா அடி போற்றி!

Hara Hara Sankara Jaya Jaya Sankara!

On this auspicious Pradosham day, I am reaching out to you all for support.

As I have repeated this million times in this blog, our goal is not just to read about Mahaperiyava, appreciate it and just get on with our business. We want to follow whatever possible to best of our extent. This falls under two categories (1) self-improvement (2) samashti support for greater causes. For (1), every nithya anushtanams, japams, puja we do should be kept private – no need to bring it to the social media etc. For (2) we need to join hands to do it. Having a good satsang here, we have a great opportunity to do things together to the causes that are so close to Mahaswami

As you all are aware, with Kanchi Acharyas’ blessings, our blog and Kanchi Guruparampara Foundation (KGF) has been doing several kainkaryams for the past 5+ years. Collectively we have participated in very significant events of our lifetime in this process. We have been supporting several veda patasala / ghosala and temple renovation projects etc very successfully. All projects are blessed by HH Balaperiyava and we provide yearly updates to Sri Matam.

Two projects worth mentioning in 2018 – (1) Echangudi Patasala support (2) Tiruvanaika Akilandeswari kumbabishekam. I will write a detailed post on Echangudi soon. For Tiruvanaikka kumabishekam, Smt Mahalakshmi mami is heading the whole project at a much larger scale. From the blog, we will give our humble contribution to this great project.

In addition to supporting the causes mentioned above, from 2018, we are also looking at supporting for two additional causes::

From the funds position, last official fundraiser was in 2016. Funds we have generated in the past are mostly used and importantly, we don’t want to stop our support to the patasalas/ghosalas etc. Hence this appeal.

So what’s the right amount to donate? Anything is the right amount – there is no fixed amount. However, in order to catch-up with inflation etc, I believe that Rs 4000 from each India devotee and $400 from US devotee seem reasonable. This works out to roughly Rs 10/day in India and $1/day in US. I am also fully aware that you all have different causes to support and we all can do only so much from our paychecks. However, please do your best to support KGF to continue our operations. If you can’t support, that’s fine too. The last thing we want to say to a patasala is “Sorry we have to stop supporting you as we dont have funds”. That would be pretty heart-breaking for all.

To give the transparency on how we are operating, I normally post one mid-year update in June timeframe and one in December as end of year update (if something has changed significantly). We also send yearly-updates to Periyava.

As years go, we also get to know more needy causes, our methods of validating the needs, genuineness of the folks have improved and our operations have stabilized too. We have wonderful partners in India (Sri Shivarpanam Trust & Sri Pratyaksha Trust) who have been so supporting and flexible. They work very very closely with HH Balaperiyava for all of their projects. We now have Sai in India to coordinate and expand our operations. Thanks to all of them for their support.

Please visit https://www.kgpfoundation.org/support.html for details on both US and India contributions.

For those who want to contribute through your employer, KGF is registered as a charitable and religious organization. So, many corporation would not list KGF as one of the charities. However there are some organizations that would allow to contribute to such organizations if they declare that the amount would be spent only for non-religious purpose. For instance Microsoft allows this through Benevity. One of our readers, who works there contribute regularly through their employer. This would require us to do yearly self-certification with them, which we do not have any issues doing. Please talk to your HR and find out more on this.

Other ways to support is to do ALL your amazon shopping via https://smile.amazon.com and making KGF your preferred charity to support. You will not believe how small pennies add up at the end of the day. I strongly encourage all US readers to consider this route. Important point is to do all your shopping through smile.amazon.com. If you buy it normally from http://www.amazon.com, then it wouldn’t work.

One request “Please AVOID PayPal as much as possible”. Just to give you an idea, for 2017, the PayPal fee alone was $486 (roughly Rs 30,000) – imagine how much of food for cows we could have purchased for that amount?!. I know PayPal is easy as opposed to writing checks and mailing. If you have no other option but to pay through it, it is ok. Otherwise, please mail me the check to my address – even if it takes few days to get here…

Please share this post with your friends who may not be following the blog and together, let us make a difference.

Please feel free to contact us for questions.

Looking forward to seeing your generous support

Always at the service of Kanchi Acharyas,

KGF