NRI Pulse Staff Report
Atlanta, GA: “Excellent planning”, “smooth execution”, “well organized”, “great competition” – these were some of the comments being heard on both event days for Vibha Atlanta’s 12th annual Dream Play 2015 events sponsored by North Fulton Smiles. The original one- day event has been split to two events on separate days, in order to accommodate the different logistics of the ever-growing Chess and Table Tennis tournaments. The H2K Infosys sponsored Chess Tournament was conducted on Feb 7th, 2015 at South Forsyth Middle School, and the India Plaza sponsored Table Tennis Tournament was conducted on Feb 28th Feb, 2015 at Atlanta International Table Tennis Academy.
As always, Vibha Youth played a major role in planning the fundraiser, designing the fliers, spreading the word and doing the publicity before finally executing it perfectly on the event day. The team started working for this event last November.
The youth lead for the Chess event was Khushboo Sarda (under the guidance of the parent lead Rekha Savant). “We had around 170 players from all walks of life and from all ages, young and old who wanted to play for a good cause and also compete at the same time. The enthusiasm and energy of the participants was evident from the way they surged into the venue as soon as the doors opened for the competition,” revealed Khushboo.
Chess had six categories – three rated (Championship, Reserve and Novice) and three unrated (Grades 3 and below, Grades 4 – 12 and Adults) which was professionally managed by Steve Schneider and Keith Sewell of Championship Chess. The top three winners from each category were given trophies. Also a Star trophy was given to rated participants who had a plus score of 2.5 and higher.
The Youth lead for the Table Tennis event was Jai Mareddy (under the guidance of the parent lead Sayli Deshmukh). The TT event saw people from all ages participating for a good cause and competing with gusto. “A lot of the adults participated for the nostalgia and the fact that they were able to give back to the community while having fun in the process,” admitted Jai. The tournament was managed by Archana Athalye of Archi’s Table Tennis Club. Trophies were awarded to 1st place winners and the first runner up in the categories of Junior Singles, Men Singles, Women Singles, Men doubles and Mixed doubles.
Check out the full list of winners for both the tournaments and photos – http://events.vibha.org/atlanta/dreamplay
This was yet another successful year of a very well organized event by Vibha’s youth wing. Events like these are an excellent opportunity for Vibha Youth to experience and develop leadership skills and contribute to a cause which helps underprivileged children. Vibha Youth also provides opportunities to do hands on volunteering locally to the youth of Atlanta. http://wiki.vibha.org/Atlanta:Vibha_Youth
Vibha is a platform that brings together people that want to make a difference in the life of an underprivileged child. Funds raised by such fund raising events are just one of the tools provided towards that mission. http://www.vibha.org/
The next Vibha event will be Vibha Cricket Cup 2015 http://events.vibha.org/atlanta/cricket/home
