The Hindu Heritage Camp in Evergreen area of San Jose was conducted on May 7th in Carolyn Clark Elementary School forum. About 35 children from age group 4 to 13 attended the event.
The activities included geet and shloka chanting, games, story session and arts and crafts. The camp began at 10am with a quick introduction of participants followed by geet and shloka chanting. This was followed by a 15 minutes session of warm up and surya namaskar. The children were grouped in three groups for a 45 minutes session of outdoor games followed by a break. There was another 45 minutes story session to conclude the mornings activities.
The children started the afternoon session after the 45 minutes lunch break. In the session of arts and crafts shishu gana made Mother’s day greeting cards and did a coloring activity. Bala Gana 1 made wall hangings out of foam and Mother’s Day greeting cards. Bala gana 2 did a very good job in their activity of making Ganesh idols with clay. All children had a fun time during arts and crafts sessions. This was followed by a smaller 30 minutes game session and then a 10 minutes break.
The parents arrived at about 3 pm and there was a 30 minutes discussion session for them. They were provided information about weekly Balgokulam shakhas, balgokulam magazine and upcoming family camp. Many parents registered for the Shikshak’s training session. In parallel, the children particpated in the shloka session. At about 3:40 everybody gathered together for samarop. Dr. Shashwati Kale addressed the gathered parents. The event was concluded with a shanti mantra.
The shikshaks for this camp were Bhavika Patel, Chetan Surpur, and Praneet Wadge. Rhucha Joshi, Vidya, Anjali Patel, Lata Joshi, Minal Joshi, Praveen Dhir, and Rajshekhar Kuppa helped as sahshikshaks. Digant Dash and Abhay Joshi provided other help. Samhita Dash, Chandan Parkhe and Shruti Chitnis were the parent volunteers.