Volunteer Interview: Featuring Hetal Patel from Raleigh

1. Why did you join Vibha, and how long have you been with Vibha?

I’ve been a volunteer for Vibha for about one year now. I joined because Vibha is a great organization which allows an individual to be him/her self when it comes to contributing ideas and time to help underprivileged children. Growing up in third world country I saw many children with minimal to no resources for basic needs of daily life. As a child I had made a promise to myself that one day I would help those children live a better life. Vibha allowed me to jumpstart my childhood promise.

Recently I visited one of Vibha’s projects in India while I was visiting family. Being onsite and seeing what we as Vibha do was a true satisfaction. What I like about Vibha is that is allows an individual to come forward with different ideas and visions. It is not like a standardized non-profit organization where all you do is raise money and send it over to projects. Vibha lets you be part of the grass roots, it lets you experience first hand. It’s a unique capital venture organization which helps scale and sustain reproducible system for struggling areas of education and health system in India.

2. What is your current role at Vibha?  Describe what you do on a periodic basis.

My current role at Vibha is of an Action Center Coordinator for Raleigh-Durham Chapter of NC. Five like minded individuals set up the Raleigh-Durham Chapter in June of 2012. Since I’ve taken on the role of ACC, my role is to help volunteers of our Action Center to learn about Vibha, come up with ideas to help spread awareness in the area, come up with local volunteering ideas, help plan fundraising events, set up booths, and be there for volunteers for any need they may have. My role is to also oversea projects and events being held/planned for the year.

3. What is your favorite even/highlight of working with Vibha?

The most rewarding part of it is the enthusiasm and excitement of all the volunteers to help our local community as well as helping underprivileged children in India. My favorite highlight of our chapter so far has been our first event Bowl-a-thon. The event was to simply attract people and show what Vibha was about. We not only had a good turnout but we had over 30 plus volunteer sign ups in a span of two months.

My second most favorite highlight has been the local volunteering at Stop Hunger Now. At Stop Hunger Now, we helped package 200 plus meals for third world countries. The event was success and such a fun event. We enjoyed measuring different dehydrated veggies and grains and packing them. As a group of 8 plus volunteers it only took us 45 minutes to pack 200 meals. We had not realized how big of an impact we all made in just 45 minutes. All the volunteers contributed their time and money for this event and everyone walked out with a huge smile wanting to come back again to do it ALL OVER AGAIN!

4. What do you look forward to most for Vibha?

In the future I am patiently waiting for our action center to grow and become a strong foundation for our area. I am excited to make big impacts from small to big ideas by our volunteers. I look forward to our Dream Mile Event and couple of other events we’ve been talking about. All in all, I am very pleased with our Action Center and all the hard work of each and every individual of Raleigh-Durham Action Center. I hope to serve to the best of my ability and bring excitements and enthusiasm for our Action Center.