Goa Sudharop participated, for the first time, in The Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon in San Jose, California on October 14, 2007 along with 14,000 other participants all running or walking for various charities and individual goals. A few Bay Area Goans hearkened to Goa Sudharops call, registered for the event, trained assiduously and accomplished their goals. Thanks to the generous financial support and encouragement of personal friends, family and our Goan community, this team raised a total of $5,061 for Goa Sudharop. From all accounts, it was a great success, more so for those that walked for the first time and made it through the arduous 13.1 miles.
In the interest of full disclosure, transparency, and accountability, here is the financial totals: our leader in the walk and fund raising total was none other than Karin de Almeida whose record time was 2 hours 48 minutes and total amount raised was $1,280. What an outstanding and spectacular accomplishment for Karin! Our leader in the run and in the second place for his fund raising efforts was Neufito Fernandes, whose finish time was 1 hour 53 minutes. Neufito raised $1,116 and, as committed in his appeal prior to the race, matched the first $1,000 to bring his total to $2,116. Excellent job and congratulations to the rest of the team! >From this total, as allocated by individual project sponsors and runners, Goa >Sudharop has designated $2,480 towards the Helping Hands project in Goa and $2,581 towards Environment projects and awards in Goa, consistent with our ENVIRONMENT theme this year. "Helping Hands" is a project pioneered by volunteer efforts to put up a shelter in the remote village of Sante Estevam for the homeless, the destitute and impoverished fellow citizens. The event was a source of great pride and satisfaction for each of our participants, an exhilarating sense of joy and fulfillment resulting from the commitment to a great cause, a very rewarding experience indeed. They are all excited to participate again next year (October 5, 2008), some with their spouse and/or teenage children. To take this wonderful experience a notch higher, the plan is to stay back and enjoy the Rock and Roll concert that follows the run. Feel free to join the group again in this fun and most rewarding event. Register via www.rnrsj.com for our next 2008 theme, Year of the Education and let Acaria Almeida know if you plan to run/walk with the Goa Sudharop Team at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Goa Sudharop would like to thank our Treasurer, Mrs. Acaria Almeida, for the hard work and efforts of organizing this fund-raiser and thank all the runners & donors who made the event a complete success. Goa Sudharop www.goasudharop.org
