The most impactful speech was given by a 14-year old girl who benefited from the organization’s work.
By Avani Venkatesh
RICHMOND, Virginia: On Friday June 10th, an astounding 75,000 dollars was raised by the American India Foundation at the Annual 2016 Richmond Gala. The evening started with a speech on the background information on the organization. AIF’s main purposes and goals such as expanding technology in rural Indian schools were explained by actor Omi Vaidya. The evening included an auction proctored by AbraAnnes, a speech by the Governor of VirginiaTerry McAuliffe on how the Indian American community has helped Virginia’s economy grow, and a speech by the CEO of the American India Foundation Alex Counts, in which he highlighted the importance of bringing parts of the Indian community in India out of poverty. All of these speeches were given by influential, powerful people, but the most impactful was a speech given by a 14 year old girl named KeerthanaVivekanathan. Keerthana is one of thousands of children impacted by AIF. Shetravelled for the first time from Indiato the United States to help make all friends of AIF aware of the large impact they have.
Planning and executing a gala this successful took months and months of hard work from many different people, including the young volunteers of AIF. The work that they do and the commitment that they have is what makes every single gala so energetic