If you are a Penn State football fan, don't be surprised to see Vijay Agarwala, a Senior Research Staff member at Penn State's Center for Academic Computing, enthusiastically hawking water to you in the Beaver Stadium stands. You'll also find his young son Vivek Anand scurrying around to help Dad.
After over 3 hours of tiring trips from the water stand to the bleachers, Vijay enthusiastically says --- ``I like doing this thing. You are not only doing a service to the thirsty folks out there but also directly helping raise funds for a good cause.''
Vijay and son Vivek are just two of the several members of the State College community, AID volunteers and their friends who are doing a repeat performance of a fund-raising and volunteer-involvement idea tried last year in the Fall of 1998. These volunteers run the Penn State concession stands that sell food and drinks at Penn State Women's Soccer games and water at the football games. AID benefits through the sale at these stands.
The idea of working at concession stands was the brain-child of Prof.
Vasundara Varadan, who used to serve as the faculty advisor for AID's Penn
State chapter for the last two years. Last year she played a lead role in
procuring the concessions contract for AID and enthusiastically volunteered
at many games with members of her family. By volunteering time and effort
at 15 games in Fall 98, AID raised over $1000 last year. By
expanding their activities this year, the State College community has
raised well over $2000 this year.
Jayashree Sonti, an accountant at the Bursar's Office at Penn State and a regular AID member, is always looking for ways to get increased community involvement at the State College chapter. By encouraging the community members such as Lalitha to participate in the concession stands venture, she has been better able to project the voluntary spirit behind AID. In addition, this activity has also exposed AID to a larger group of people. Many regular game fans recognize us from previous games. Others stop to ask ``What group are you with?''
By asking for a small amount of time on a weekend afternoon, AID members are able to reach many others outside their group. Ask Bhramara, Amisha, Smarjit, Murli, Srinivas, Ajay, Gokul and many other new volunteers about their excitement while selling the water bottles. Or Ramana who very honestly admitted, ``I'm not a very service oriented person. But this I can do!''
Some, like Pradeep Bhatta have got excited enough to become ``Stand Managers''. Others like Vithal, Priya, Raghu and Prasad who got involved at earlier fund-raisers became members of the AID Executive Committee.
While a large part of the projects that are supported by AID are made possible through generous donations, such fund-raisers are a way to get AID volunteers directly involved by harnessing their time, effort and team spirit.
However today, these subtleties are forgotten and the fun spirit takes over. It's Saturday morning at the Beaver Stadium and at water stand, 19W Amisha's voice competes with the neighboring food stand. 50 feet away at water stand 17W, booms Vithal's sing song voice ..
``Water, Water! Get your ICE-COLD Water!!''
Aniruddha Vaidya
[Note: This article was written from my observations largely based on the Penn State home games on Sept 4th and Sept. 11th 1999. I apologize that the article may be a bit dated by now. There are also perhaps many more volunteers who have since volunteered at the AID concession stands. I found the article languishing in my files but thought it might be marginally interesting. -Aniruddha]