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Braille Day – Project Work at RIDBC – 8 January 2009 JET Sydney volunteers were blessed with an opportunity to complete gardening project work for Royal Institute of Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC) pre-schools on the 8 January 2009 to mark the occasion of Braille day event. RIDBC provided us with an opportunity to perform gardening project work on their premises on the 8 January 2009. The task was to mulch and weed the garden of the pre-school on the premises. JET volunteers gathered at RIDBC at 7:45 am for 8:00 am start. Diana Piper , Volunteer Co-ordinator, RIDBC provided name tags & introduced our volunteers to Paul Schein, Facilities Officer of RIDBC who explained the tasks that need to be completed for the day. Paul repeatedly acknowledged that it is a very difficult task and would cost a lot to RIDBC if they need to pay for getting the job done. Our volunteers worked very hard. It was so good to see all volunteers working so passionately outside the comfort zone. In fact everyone was so good at doing the task that the job that was meant to be completed in half a day was finished in two hours. All volunteers were forcefully stopped for a morning tea break as per the requirements of Health and Safety rules. We then shared prasadam (pongal & fruit juice) with our friends at RIDBC. Paul was surprised at our volunteers’ skills and determination and gave us more work clearing dry leaves and mulching the garden at another school on the premises. The weather was unbelievably pleasant on the day. The temperatures during the week were ranging from 35° to 40° C but the weather was nice and cooler on the day of the event. The surya bhaghavan was so kind to our volunteers and vayu bhaghavan gave nice cool breeze which made the job so easy on the day. Great team work of volunteers assisted exceeding the expectations on the day. Hard work from volunteers present on the day (some volunteers travelled about 40 kms on bus and train), co-ordination of the event by other volunteers who were unable to attend the event, obliging last minute requests by some volunteers to attend the event contributed for the success of the event. Thanks to Diana Piper for considering our special request. Thanks to all volunteers for taking a day off to do the job. Volunteers participated in the event are: Padmaja Gudipati, Mrinalini Perumal, Madan Gandham, Sampath Pothuluri, Vythees Suppiah, Nirupama Karlapudi, Vasundhara Anjaneya, Jayavardhan Boyenpally, Bimla Chand, & Seetha Commuri.
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