Saturday, December 12, 2009
Cerritos, CA
It has been raining since last couple of days in Southern California and apart from the rain and bad weather, it was a great enthusiasm among the Nepalese who came together to plant the seed of something that would last for a long time in the future. More than 40 excited community members, made a group decision to form “Shree PashupatinathFoundation, USA” in Los Angeles and surrounding area. There was participation of community members from various cities: Valley area, Riverside, Anaheim, Redondo Beach, Downey, Norwalk, Palmdale, Whittier, Los Angeles, Alhambra, El Monte, Cerritos, Artesia and many other surrounding cities.
Everybody who was present there, had only one big VISION: to establish “Shree Pashupatinath Foundation, USA”,to preserve our Nepalese culture, values and to have a common ground for us and our children to be able to promote our culture and value system. The program was hosted by Madan Pathak and a committee was formed among the energetic community team members:
Chairman : Bhakta Thapa
Vice Chairman: Gokul Poudyal
Shiva Kumar Adhikari
General Secretary: Prem Guragain
Treasurer: Punnakhar “Rishi” Dhakal
Members:
Basu Ghimire, Rajendra Siwakoti, Madan Pathak, Narayan Pandey, Bed Dawadi, Amita Paudyal,
Bisoraj Oopadhyaya, Arjun Tripathi, Bakhan Thapa, Ganesh Bogati, Prakash C. Ghimire, Uma Thapa,Mukunda Dhungana, Anil Pradhan and Dil Bahadur Shrestha.Dr. Shambhu Dhungana, Chairman of Friends of Nepal, Los Angeles, had talked about the importance
of the Foundation and discussed about formation of the committee. Gokul Poudyal, had read a letter from Dr. Deepak Shimkhada, who had mentioned about his full support in this project, which was a great source of inspiration for all those present in the meeting. Other speakers who spoke about various topics were:
Bhakta Thapa, Basu Ghimire, Punnakhar “Rishi” Dhakal, Prem Guragain, Shiva Adhikari, Shyam Tulachan, Shanti Ram Dhakal (Chairman of Nepal America Ekata Samaj), Amita Poudyal and Prakash C. Ghimire.
Community members had pledged over $60,000 for the Foundation and this was just the beginning. Everybody was excited and committed to make this happen in Los Angeles area and showed so much UNITY and the common voice was:
Let’s make it happen since this will be one of biggest projects for Nepalese, living outside Nepal. Various speakers had given the examples of such foundations in Washington DC Metro area and also in DFW, Texas area. All went back home with so much hope and great feeling that this project will bring “Each Nepalese family together, being united in a great
way.” By;Rishi Dhakal,Las Angels,USA