On April 14th, members of the community gathered in celebration of the Indian Festival of color, Holi.
Juniors Apoorva Navale, Laya Kalavapudi, and Manya Grover organized an event called Holi Moli as their IB Creativity, Activity, and Service (CAS) project.
Navale said lots of preparation work was needed to make the event possible.
“We organized it with this organization called Kanthi, which is run by one of Laya’s family friends named Kavitha Jaspal,” Navale said. “It was really fun, and we actually had been working on it for four months to set up the event, get the venue, get the color, and sell the tickets.”
With last-minute doubt, Navale said she was relieved to have gained such a large interest from the community.
“We had over 500 people come, which is kind of a lot of people,” Navale said. “We were really happy that our turnout was big because we were scared no one would come.”
Navale said Holi is a festival that celebrates unity.
“What people do is they take colored powder and throw it at each other, and it’s kind of just a celebration of happiness and togetherness overall,” Navale said. “It was really fun, and throughout the event, we had people dancing, dances going on and we also had people come in and get food that we catered from Anna Suhda Community Kitchens.”
Sophomore Anna Schumer was one of the event’s volunteers.
¨I came early, and I was in charge of the color,” Schumer said. “I would just scoop and give color to those who wanted that certain color. I was also in charge of just scoping out everything and making sure everything was going smoothly.”
Seeing the results, Schumer said, was the most rewarding part of her volunteer experience.
“It was really cool to be able to bring and get so many volunteers and raise so much money,” Schumer said. “It was just really nice to be able to see everyone enjoying themselves, and there were just so many people there.”
Schumer said the event impacted her because she learned more about Holi and Indian culture.
“It was really nice to be able to learn more about the tradition from one who doesn’t normally celebrate it,” Schumer said.
Navale said she hopes to continue highlighting unity amongst cultures in the community.
“I definitely want to do it next year,” Navale said. “Community is really important, and anyone can be a part of any celebration, and a lot of people come from different ethnicities, not just Indian. I think it’s really important that people are able to celebrate other cultures and have fun together,” Navale said.
