Play, eat and donate generously during ‘Joy of Giving’ week
By Express News Service | Published: 01st October 2017 09:56 PM |
Last Updated: 02nd October 2017 07:06 AM | A+A A- |
(Second from left) M Mahadevan, Manoj Kumar Sonthalia, Latha Rajan and Ramesh Rangarajan in front of the undiyal
CHENNAI: The ninth edition of Joy of Giving week, a two-day festival, was inaugurated by Latha Rajan, founder, Ma Foi, Manoj Kumar Sonthalia, CMD, The New Indian Express and Ramesh Rangarajan, director, The Hindu. “This year it is going to be bigger and better from what we have seen in the previous years. It is a two-day celebration with three major events — Sevamela, undiyal and Battle of the Buffet,” said Prasanna, one of the organisers of the event.
The Sevamela is an exhibition of more than 60 NGOs (that work towards various causes such as children welfare, old age, healthcare, women, special needs, etc) from across Tamil Nadu and 12 restaurants. Sevamela was inaugurated by Latha Rajan. “The 12 hotels have donors passes and 50-100% of the proceeds these hotels get will be given give to an NGO of their choice,” he said.
Another highlight of the event was a 24-feet undiyal, which was inaugurated by Manoj Kumar Sonthalia and Ramesh Rangarajan. They both generously contributed their share. “This is the largest undiyal in Asia. The proceeds from these two days will be distributed among all participating NGOs,” he added.
The much-awaited ‘Battle of Buffet’ event will have popular five-star hotels from the city providing a lavish spread of dinner to the residents of the NGOs, free of cost and also sell donor passes to raise funds for the work done by these NGOs. “It’s a great movement.
We want the public to donate and show that Chennai gives and cares. We have food-stalls by Ente Keralam, Anjappar, etc. People should visit here and eat with us and of course, do their bit,” expressed M Mahadevan, founder and chairman, Oriental Cuisines.
The event promotes the act of giving at various levels — donate, eat and donate, play and donate. Continuing the philanthropic activities through the week, there will also be a photo cake making organised by French Loaf on October 3 at Phoenix MarketCity. Participants will make the longest photo cake on the theme ‘A tribute to women in cinema’. It will be inaugrated by Mahadevan, actor Suhasini Mani Ratnam and Reynold Fernandes, CEO, Oriental Cuisines.
