Rasi Food Seva distributed 15,922 lbs. of food during 2024 through its pantry.
In addition, weekly food donations were made at the local shelters.
In addition to continuing our partnership with Antioch High School, RaSi has extended the outreach to John Adams High School in Queens, NY and donated school supplies at their event where Divjot and Apeksha Singh represented us.
RaSi Holds Hands was represented at Summer Breeze Run in San Leandro, California on Aug 3rd. Our team of 14 runners (from Virginia, Colorado, Oregon, in addition to the local ones) participated in 5k,10k and half marathon.
Our efforts to install a bench on the local trail have borne fruition and a bench has been placed on Hidden Valley Trail in San Ramon, CA. We hope it will be a spot for the weary hikers to rest their limbs and lift their spirits by partaking in the scenic views.
Our three winners of the 2024 RaSi Academic Scholarships are:
Jordan Danielle Ozuna from Pittsburg High School.
Jasmin Diaz Munoz from Antioch High School.
Christopher Ho from Hayward High School.
RaSi Holds Hands initiative to spread community libraries, took its first step on the East Coast with the installation of a Book Nook in Mclean Virginia at Pawan and Sanjiv’s property.
Our wonderful team members in New York City organized an event “Ride for Rantej” at Cyclebar on February 10th. This event was hosted both to honor Rantej and to raise awareness of the Charity. The cycling class provided an engaging workout, dynamic and inclusive environment that catered to cyclists of all capabilities and over 65 people participated.
To start off the year 2024, RaSi Holds Hands spread some warmth by donating items such as blankets, warm clothing, and food to various homeless members of our community.
We are pleased to announce that RaSi has entered a partnership with towns of San Ramon and Pittsburg in Contra Costa County, CA to help fund their Youth Development Programs.
RaSi Pantry distributed 8817 lbs of food during this year
The recipients of this year’s scholarship were Mateo J Castro from Antioch High School and Dylan Hoang from Hayward High School.
Scholarship Award Nights were held on 5/3/23 and 5/30/23 at Antioch High School and Hayward High School respectively.
RaSi Holds Hands established a cubby in September at East Avenue Elementary School in Hayward. The cubby is stocked with school supplies and non-perishable snacks and is being replenished on a regular basis throughout the school year.
Rantej’s friend Jaspreet Tathgur installed a RaSi Book Nook outside his Bike store at Larkspur in Marin County, CA.
This year RaSi was a co-sponsor of the Annual Bruin Bhangra Competition held in Los Angeles on May 28th. Angad, Harsh, Jyot, Rahul and Subeg attended the event to represent RaSi. During the competition they made a short presentation introducing our charity to the audience.
RaSi exists to further the humanitarian goals that Rantej had set up for himself in concordance with his values. In pursuit of that, services to the dispossessed and the homeless were added. The initial outreach, starting February 5th, was in the town of Antioch in Contra Costa County. Warm clothing (blankets, scarves, caps and socks), toiletries and meals were provided.
These initial contacts made us aware of the pressing and continuing need in the community and made us decide to turn this into a weekly ‘Seva’ at the local shelters.
Rantej’s alma mater NYU, has an active and vibrant Sikh Association that conducts an annual langar seva. This year RaSi was invited to collaborate with them for the seva held at Kimmel center on March 2nd and team RaSi was represented by Divjot Singh and Harsh Khurana.
The year was spent formulating and working towards Youth development, Cultural awareness and Community outreach. To fulfill these objectives, we started the following projects
Scholarship programs were established at Antioch and Hayward High School for college bound graduating Seniors.
Established a Sports Fund for Antioch High School. The disbursal of the funds is left to the discretion of the Athletic Director (to use for whatever athletic materials they feel necessary for the students).
100 sweatshirts were given to Students at Antioch and Hayward High School as part of winter clothing drive. The idea came from a story the School Counselor relayed about a child who complained of back ache due to lack of warm clothing.
The first food ‘seva’ as a drive thru, was organized at Hayward high School on Dec.14th. It was a well-attended event held on the school premises that provided bags of staple food items to families in need. Enough food for approximately 2250 meals was provided.
Items of personal hygiene and school stationery were made available for the students at Antioch High School.
To recognize Rantej’s love for books, RaSi came up with the idea of community book sharing. As a first step towards realizing that goal the first book nook was installed in our neighborhood followed by another one on Feathermint Drive in San Ramon. CA.