The VT Seva Detroit Youth Board initiated their first-ever charity walkathon in 2021. Not only was it a first for our group, but it was also a hybrid walkathon, taking place both virtually and in person.
Walkathon participants were able to head to vtwalk.org, a custom website designed for this event. Rather than walking for just one day, the walkathon lasted all summer and supported two amazing causes.
When someone is diagnosed with cancer, money becomes another issue on top of everything else. Angels of Hope provides financial assistance to Michigan families in need due to cancer so families can focus on supporting their loved ones.
COVID-19 has hit India extremely hard, and the entire nation is in desperate need. VT Seva Bharath has been working relentlessly to support the nation with its fight against the pandemic.
All the proceeds from this event were donated to Angels of Hope and VT Seva Bharath.
It was a very successful Walkathon, raised $3214 and splitted equally with both organizations.
We received a Thankyou letter from Angels of hope. So proud of all youth volunteers who made a difference in so many people's lives.
The first step was building a brand new website for participants to register at and track their steps on. Weeks before the walkathon, the Detroit team worked with the Dallas team to create this website. It was amazing to collaborate with other branches and the website was done very professionally. A special thanks to Dallas Branch Director, Uttam for his dedication and support towards our website development and thanks to Harish, Oviya & Priya for doing the QA testing and load testing.
Thanks to Harish for creating a flyer for Walkathon.
On June 18, 2021, vtwalk.org was launched at our Walkathon Kickoff Meeting. We had a ton of youth board volunteers in attendance, allowing for an interactive discussion to better understand our hybrid walkathon and the responsibilities associated with being a team lead.
The youth board members who signed up as team leads created their own teams for the walkathon and motivated their team members to actively walk and track their steps.
29 team members 162 participants, 43 days walked more than 20 Million steps (1000+ miles)
VT Seva Detroit has always wanted to contribute towards its healthcare pillar. In 2020, the VTS Detroit Youth Board started off by supporting the St. Mary Mercy hospital in Livonia by raising money to fund the purchase of N-95 masks and other COVID-19 treatment supplies.
In 2021, the youth board continued this mission by supporting Angels of Hope and VTS Bharath’s COVID-19 relief activities.
All of our 29 team leads worked incredibly hard to promote the cause and get more people to join their team. This event’s success could not have been accomplished without these team leads.
Our wonderful Team Leads were Hiba, Oviya, Harish, Kaavya, Sanjith, Amogh, Supraja, Udhayaa, Srihari H, Niharika, Hrudya, Rashmitha, Nikita, Siddharth, Sai Sahasra,Abishristi, Pranav T, Saisha, Arya, Teja, Shrikha, Eesha, Kalki, Chakrika, Rohan, Sanjana, Genea, Aditi & Peter
Genea, a company that provides property tech solutions, partnered with us to support our causes. 15 of their employees joined us virtually and supported our cause.
Peter Trajkoski’s family also joined in his memory to support our cause. Linda Auge’s family from Trinity Health also joined us to support our cause.
All of our team lead family members and friends participated in our first walkathon and made it a real success.
Special shout out to Chandrashekhar ji for donating towards this great cause.
For the first 42 days, all the volunteers walked virtually and motivated each other with friendly competition by logging their steps at vtwalk.org.
On the 43rd day, they all met for an in-person walkathon. Suzie Jovcevski and her family also joined us in representing Angels of Hope.
In-Person Walkathon was conducted on July 31, 2021 at Shiawassee Park, Farmington. Starting at 8 AM, volunteers helped with the set-up, check-in, snack distribution, and cleaning.
Suzie and her family members set up a stall to explain about Angels of Hope and distributed promotional materials.
Our set-up volunteers made a balloon arch, tied the balloons and ribbons on the trees in the park with the VT Seva Walkathon Flyers, arranged the tables for check-in, a t-shirt stall, and a Gatorade stall. All of our VT Seva Detroit members who all showed up chipped in all of the activities made this a true family event.
Our check-in volunteers did an awesome job at the registration desk by going through the COVID-19 questionnaire and checking in walkers. Once the check-in was over, our snack table volunteers handed out gift bags to the registrants.
Once again, without our amazing team, it would not be possible to hand out gift bags filled with water bottles, apples, snack bars, and hand sanitizer.
Special shout out to
Zahara for sponsoring water bottles,
Vani for apples,
Architha for snack bars and Priya for hand sanitizers.
Geetha sponsored the Gatorade bottles to sell during the event.
Architha & Venkat for printing out certificates for the winners.
Priya for printing out the flyers to distribute in stores and parks.
Sudheer for getting balloons for the arch.
Our RAAS promotion volunteers were doing an awesome job in explaining our annual fundraising event RAAS to the newcomers and our t-shirt stall was handled by our treasurer and the youth volunteers.
Our volunteering coordinator Vanitha made sure all of the tasks had been done properly.
Priya Jaisankar, the VT Seva Detroit Youth Board Director, started our walkathon with her welcome speech.
Each one of our participants walked 3000 meters! The park was lively, buzzing with happy chatter and beautiful morning weather. Many youth members began to race down the track, inspiring other adult participants to start racing to finish their 3Ks. This event was insanely fun, jovial, and light-hearted.
All the moments were captured beautifully by our Media volunteers.
Our wonderful volunteers who signed up to help with In-Person Walkathon were,
Youth Volunteers: Amogh, Arya, Eesha, Harish, Hiba, Hrudya, Jethri, Kaavya, Oviya, Sai Sahasra, Sai Karnati, Shruthi, Siddharth, Teja & Udhayaa
Adult Volunteers: Architha, Nandini, Suresh, Durga, Anitha, Geetha, Kishore, Vani, Bhanu, Sreenivas, Anand, Veena, Vanitha, Srinath, Jyothi, Sudheer & Priya
Whole team was doing such an awesome job entering their steps every day during the virtual walkathon, even though it was virtual there was a friendly competition going on to see who walked more steps each day. Every night there was a statistics posted in the walkathon group to provide updates on walkathon statistics.
Our special guests Latha and Suzie handed over the certificates to our winners
Top 3 teams who had more steps were Hiba, Siddharth, and Genea
Top 3 individuals who had more steps were Abhinav, Zahara, and Zareena
Top 3 team leads who had more participants were Peter Trajkoski, Harish, and Genea
Detroit Branch Director Srinath and National Secretary Sudheer and Youth Board Director Priya gave a thank you speech appreciating all the volunteers
The clean-up volunteers did an amazing job at taking down all the decorations and stalls, leaving the park even better than we found it.
Thanks to our Detroit Communications team (Nandini) for her continuous support in publishing content provided by event leads in all our Social media channels ( Youtube, Whatsapp, Facebook, VTSworld Blogs, and Event logs) from start to the completion of the event.
Even though we had volunteers sign up for specific tasks, lots of our volunteers and participants pitched in any area without any hesitation. They made this event feel like a family event rather than a charity event.
Our Detroit Team rocks without any doubt they will keep rocking and shake the world with their compassion!
Watch the compilation of the VT Seva Detroit First-Ever Virtual Walkathon Video below.
Please visit our Facebook page for the Live Videos (Round 1 and Round 2) captured on the event day, and also for other VT Seva Detroit events and activities. Please do like and share and spread the news about VT Seva.
Blog created by Priya
Published by Nandini
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