Jain Sangh of Greater Austin – Invitation to our Khatmuhurat and Shilanyas ceremony June 10-12th
Hello Udaibhai/Urvashiben/Shefaliben,
My name is Apurva Bhansali and I am writing to you on behalf of the Jain Sangh of Greater Austin. We want to take this opportunity to reach out to you and formally invite your entire Houston Jain Sangh to our Khatmuhurat and Shilanyas ceremony on June 10-12th, 2016.
Austin is also the home to a growing and vibrant Jain community. Our community consists of approximately 85 families and has more than doubled in just the last five years. In April 2015, with the eternal blessings of our Panch Parmestis, our community embarked a bold initiative to build a Jain Community Center (JCC) in Austin which would serve the entire Central Texas region. As it stands today, the closest Jain Center to Austin is approximately 3 hours away in either Houston or Dallas, but when complete, the Austin JCC will serve as the closest temple for Jain families in Austin, San Antonio, Waco, Temple, Corpus Christi and many other communities in Central Texas.
This project has been a true community effort. Approximately 50 people have come together to form multiple committees to do the hard work necessary to realize our dream of a Jain Center in Austin. After much due diligence in validating the feasibility of our proposed $1.2M project, we officially kicked off our fundraising drive in Paryushan of 2015 and by Diwali of the same year (less than 3 months) we had secured over $915,000 towards that goal. Earlier this year, we signed the contract with our builder, the foundation for the center has been poured and if all goes well, we will celebrate Samvatsari in our own Jain Center – less than 18 months after the start of the project!
We would like to invite you and all the members of your Sangh to our Khatmuhurat and Shilanyas ceremonies on June 10-12th. The ceremonies will be conducted by Vidhikar Narendrabhai Nandu of Mumbai, India. The attached flyer contains the details of the program. We would be honored by having your Sangh members attend and celebrate this auspicious event with us. We ask that you RSVP for the event at http://austinjainsangh.org/ceremony-registration/view/form. Please be sure to indicate if you would like us to arrange for accommodations during the event. We will attempt to satisfy all accommodation requests with host families on a first come first serve basis. On this form, you will also find a link to sign-up for one of the many Labh opportunities available during this event. We ask that you register no later than May 31st so that we can have an accurate headcount for event planning purposes.
If you are not able to attend our program, we would appreciate if you would still consider donating to our efforts. We have setup an online donation facility at http://www.austinjainsangh.org/?layout=edit&id=45. If you would like to read more about our project, please visit www.austinjainsangh.org. If you would like someone to contact you to talk personally about our project, please send an email to JSGACenterAustin@gmail.com and someone will reach out to you as soon as possible.
We request that you forward this email to all of your Sangh members and extend this invitation to them on our behalf. We would also ask that you post the attached flyer in your Jain Center as well. Thank you very much and we appreciate the kind blessings of your Sangh as we move forward on our auspicious journey of building our own Jain Center in Austin.
Sincerely,
JSGA Board in coordination with JCC Executive and Fundraising Committees
