The Indo-Americans of King Lakes celebrated Diwali with full enthusiasm, energy, and joy on Saturday, October 14 at Tompkins High school, Katy. Volunteer team of the Indo-Americans of King Lakes organized the event.
Diwali is the festival of lights to celebrate the victory of good over evil. However, Diwali is also a time when people come together as a community to honor and share Indian culture, heritage, and values. The main purpose of this event was to provide a platform to engage kids to learn, understand, and honor this amazing Indian festival.
Over 250 diverse guests wearing beautiful and traditional Indian clothes attended the community event for the 7th year in row. The event hall was full with beautifully dressed women, men and kids, eager for the fun-filled evening ahead. The celebration began by invoking God through the singing of Ganesh Vandana by the Ladies group of King Lakes. This was followed by the cultural talent show, which displayed a number of diverse performances ranging from: Bollywood dances, Martial Arts demonstrations, Piano recitals, and Classical Indian dances. The talent show was heart of the event with the entire audience mesmerized with the numerous performances. One of the highlights of this year’s event was the set-up of a professional photo booth. Everyone got a chance to take a family photo with festive Diwali decoration. All the attendees enjoyed a festive dinner along with Diwali sweets. Another highlight of event was the volunteer work done by young volunteers (ages 4-15), from welcoming people, providing help during talent show, maintaining silence, and helping serve food. Young volunteers received on-the-job experience of managing various activities of the event and learned a way to give back to the community selflessly.
The dedicated volunteers of Indo- Americans of King Lakes put selfless efforts to plan, organize and execute the various activities of the event such as from welcoming the guests, creating the special Rangoli decoration, Diwali food decoration, cultural show, and Dandiya dance. From the exciting Talent Show to the exhilarating Dandiya, the seventh annual King Lakes Diwali celebration was a hit.
Indo-American of King Lakes volunteer team included Ganesh Nanaware, Hemant Jadhav, Suresh Napa, Mehul Raol, Parimal Patel, Sourabh Sarkar, Sunny Goombar, Kapil Upadhyaya, Narendra Pendekanti, Manisha & Mahesh Halapeti, Padma Komanduri & Srinivas Sarripalli, Snehal & Sandesh Ghumare, Arun Kumar, Mahesh Karnik, Balaji Ruparti, Kedar Challa, Mahesh Harapanahalli, Ram Rao, Hemang Vora, Raja Chinthanippula, Rakhi & Sachin Joshi, and Deepak Nagawanshi. Event photo art credit goes to Kedar Challa , Ketul Raol and Kirtan Patel.
Platinum sponsor Mr. Mohsin Noon from Ameriprise, and Silver sponsor Dr. Amit Gaba from Katy Family Smiles provided the financial support to organize this community event. DJ Riaz Ali from Bollywood and Sound provided the quality sound services for this community event with great dynamism. Katy ISD supported with the venue arrangement.