‘Walk with a Doc’ –Special Event in Houston

Body, Mind and Soul of Love to Share Foundation of America organized a physical activity called “Walk with a Doc” on Saturday March 25 2017 . The event was sponsored by Texas Medical Association, Prudential and various other Institutions. The objective was to keep a healthy Texans and program has to be lead by a Physician. The Honorable Mayor of Manvel Mrs Martin addressed the gathering and the Mayor also lead the Walk. About 40 people (Men, Woman and Children) participated and walked together for about 1.9 miles (3 KMs) in the Manvel and Pearland area.

Table Tennis Tournament in Seattle

The 4th annual Love to Share Foundation America and Pro Sports Club table tennis championships happened in the Greater Seattle area on Sunday, March 19th, 2017.  A total of 28 players participated to help raise money that would help fund various non-profit causes such as free medical services. For the first time, in addition to the adult’s division, there was a children’s division as well.  The adult participants were divided into four pools of players with round robin play within each pool. The top player from each pool moved to the gold division to play off for the 1st through 4th places while the second placed player in each pool progressed to the silver division to play off for the 5th through 8th places.  For the children’s division, there were two pools of players with the top two in each pool playing off for the 1st through 4th places.  The tournament lasted for a total of three hours hours and involved some very high quality talent including a former Maharashtra state champion.

LTSF Booth in Laura Ingalls Elementary School

About six miles from the Houston Namadwaar there is a public School by name Laura Ingalls Elementary School. The School has about 800  students. These Students’ Parents have origin in several countries around the world such as UK, Germany, Italy, France, India,Pakistan, Ethiopia, Nigeria. The School has a tradition of observing one day in a year as International Day. This year on Thursday, January 19th 2017  the International Day was celebrated on January 19 2017. The Love to Share Foundation of America has put up a booth to highlight the various social and voluntary activities such as the annual free health fair, free Meditation, Yoga and Fitness program offered under the name “Body, Mind and Soul”. The Principal, Teachers and other Staff besides about two hundred visitors visited the booth and enthusiastically enquired about the Foundation and its activities.

‘Building Inner Strength’-Workshop for Students in Bay Area

MK Ramanujam (Ram) held a youth workshop on Jan 15, 2017 in San Ramon and it was attended by 25 middle and high school students as well as many of their parents.

The workshop encouraged students to first develop one’s inner strength by understanding one’s feelings and needs. Then to build close relationships with others by understanding their feelings, actions and needs. Relationship building will become particularly important as the student transitions into college and work environments.

Needs are expressed through feelings. Reading one’s feelings correctly is key to analyzing the underlying needs. Ram stressed the importance of distinguishing ‘wants’ from ‘needs’ in order to build inner mental strength and to empathize with others’ actions. The message to students was that more one is open to understanding and fulfilling others needs, more they will be willing to connect and reciprocate to fulfill one’s own needs.

Students were grouped in small teams and given an exercise to act out feelings for their teams to correctly guess them. To wrap things up, each team had a chance to share three things they learned from the workshop with the rest of us.

Many parents also attended the workshop and in the end were able to share their learnings with the students as well.

Empathy Workshop at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab invited Mr. M K Ramanujam again this year on Tuesday January 10, 2017 to conduct a workshop on the topic “Empathy: A building block for Inclusion”.

Mr. Ramanujam covered harmony filters from last year’s training at Berkeley Lab and then delved into detail on how to use those filters to empathize with others. He also showed examples of typical empathetic responses in different situations and also showed how typical empathetic conversations get sidetracked by well-intended but wrong responses.

The workshop concluded with participants working on exercises in groups followed by a debrief.

About 40 employees of Berkeley Lab participated in the workshop.

The workshop was followed by a Q&A session where participants discussed about challenges and issues they faced in implementing inclusion strategies in their groups.

Overall, the workshop and the Q&A session were well-received by the attendees.

Workshop on “Happiness and Inner Transformation” at MD Anderson Cancer Center

MD Anderson Cancer Center (one of the most prestigious cancer hospitals in USA) invited Mr.Ramanujam to deliver a lecture on “happiness and inner transformation” on December 29 2016. The lecture was attended by around one hundred Doctors, Surgeons, Nurses, QA Experts from the Hospital’s anesthesia department. Mr.Ramanujam dwelt in depth the need for focusing on the need rather than just judging and blaming. The key highlight of the one hour lecture was the way he articulated a complex idea “how to accept without agreeing”. The audience enjoyed the lecture so much that the Hospital already invited Mr.Ramanujam for a similar lecture next year. The Management felt the lecture was a key in the overall learning process of the medical professionals and therefore awarded one hour credit to each of the participants towards “ethics continuing medical education”

Group Meditation Session in PEARLAND, TX

Love to Share Foundation of America conducted a group meditation on Tuesday December 20 2016 at New Life Plaza in Pearland Houston. The meditation session was led by Mr.Ramanujam. He reiterated the significance of meditation as a tool to understand and also to manage stress. Mr.Sriram Ramanujam demonstrated the Mantra meditation and the audience did three rounds of meditation. The session was attended by men and women with diverse ethnicity. At the end, Mr.Ramunujam had a Q/A session and the participants were enthusiastic and asked several questions and also shared their experience with meditation.

‘Building Inner Strength’ Workshop for Middle and High School Students in Richmond, VA

Love to Share Foundation of America invited Mr. MK Ramanujam (Ram) to conduct the Youth Leadership Workshop on Building Inner Strength for Middle and High School students in Virginia. 22 young aspirants attended the workshop from 10 am to 12 noon on Saturday, Dec 10th and gained a useful life skill to empower them to stand out amongst the rest of the crowd, identify and improve upon that inner strength.

Mr. Ram’s unique way of connecting with the young minds resonated beautifully with the teens in attendance.

The morning started off with some introductions, followed by the first module that dealt with principles and precepts of Leadership, the first of which was all about ‘emptying the cup’, a.k.a keeping an open mind and listening. The mirror principle and many other tips and anecdotes from Mr. Ram’s wide experience made it a very enjoyable session.

Session 1: 4 volunteers were chosen and each of them were given a word by Mr. Ram and their team’s tasks is to identify the word.  Words given are all related to expressions and during this fun event teams understood that there are more than one word to an expression.  Kids showed their amazing expressive techniques to showcase the words given to them.

Session 2: 8 volunteers – 2 from each team were chosen to perform a role play.  With less than a minute to understand the concept and perform, kids did great.

Session 3: 4 volunteers – 1 from each team were chosen by their own team to present what they have learned during this 2 hours session of building inner strength.  Each of them presented their notes, their thoughts on what is an inner strength, how to identify it, how to improve upon that, how to use it better to advance in their life.

Finally, Mr. Ram, gave feedback to the students on their presentation, a participation certificate and wished them all success in their forthcoming challenges.

“Building Inner Strength” Workshop for middle-school and high-school students in Concord, Boston

On Friday December 2nd 2016, from 3-5pm, Love to Share Foundation America organized an interactive talk /discussion session under the title “Building Inner Strength” for middle-school and high-school students in the Concord/Acton area at the May Fowler branch Library in Concord MA. The session was led by eminent speaker Mr. Ramanujam.

In this session, Mr. Ramanujam talked to the teen participants about how one should how one should look at the problems with an open mind and how important it is to understand other’s emotions and respond accordingly. Those who understand others are better  leaders. Highlighting the difference between the terms ‘need’ and ‘want’, he said how one could use the sense of judgement to prioritize their needs – thereby eliminating conflicts.

The session was well received by the twenty young adults who enthusiastically participated in exercises like role-play as part of the workshop. The young minds certainly had a take-away or two that they could put to use in their life for the betterment of their self-confidence and live a happier life.

‘Happy and Harmonious Living’-Workshop for Acton-Boxborough Community in Boston

On the 1st December 2016, Love to Share Foundation America conducted a program for teachers and parents of the Acton-Boxborough (AB) community on “Happy and Harmonious Living” at Conant School in Acton MA.  This session was led by Mr. Ramanujam who talked about the paradigm of acceptance.  A happy and harmonious family can definitely influence a society to live in harmony.  Highlighting the difference between the terms ‘agree’ and ‘accept’ he underlined the fact that though we don’t agree with each other every time, accepting one as they are helps in a happy and harmonious community. For the teachers, if they have succeeded in installing the ‘eagerness to learn’ in a child then they have done their job successfully.

Prior to Ramanujam’s talk, special invitee, Ms. Susan Reynolds, a social entrepreneur and educator from West Concord, laid the foundation for the evening by talking about the behavioral issues that the youth today are facing that lead to various mental ills like depression.

About 50 adults participated in the program.  The program was facilitated by parents from the Acton-Boxborough community.

Sixth Annual Life and Soul Health Fair in Houston, TX

On September 10th  the sixth annual Life and Soul health Fair organized by Love to Share Foundation America in Manvel attracted two hundred local residents.They benefited from close to 20 different screenings including free mammograms. Over 100 flu shots were given away free of cost to local residents. The Fair was brought together by local businesses and individuals who generously donated their time, expertise and contributions for the needy in the community.

Participating organizations included Pearland Medical Center, HEB, Texas Medical Association, Alvin Community College, Walgreens, Texas Eye Institute, Sleep Center at Kirby, Dr. Richard Johnigan III, Southeast Cardiovascular Associates, Pearland MRI, Coastal Vascular Center, Genesis hearing clinic, Ina Patel with New York Life Insurance, UTMB Breast Health, Third Coast Terminals , Duke Medical, Resmed, Third Coast, Bandy and associates, Cooling Tower Solutions.

Approximately 11 organizations and individuals were especially endorsed and recognized for their exceptional community services and consistent support for the past five years by the Mayors of Pearland and Manvel.

Local area physicians providing free consultations and screenings included: Dr. Seema Nanda and students – Texas Eye Institute, Dr Parvathy Krishnan – UT Health, Dr Jorge – UT Health, Dr Stefan – UT Health, Dr Deepa Iyengar – UT Health, Dr Hema Salvady – Clearlake Rheumatology, Dr. Boggia – Bay Area Gastroenetrology, Dr Jyoti Rao – Gastroeneterology Consultants, Dr. Bansal and Dr. Maislos Fernandes – Southeast Cardiovascular Associates, Dr. Divyang Ayar – Coastal Vascular, Dr. Diana Duff, Dr Julie Coombs and Dr. Middleton – Pearland Medical Center, Henrietta Okonkwor  – AGNP – Sai Primary Care.

Over 40 enthusiastic volunteers ensured safe parking, shuttling of participants, and a smooth flow during the health fair. These included high school students from Dawson High School, Manvel High School, Debakey High School and University of Houston and volunteers from Global Organization for Divinity.

Love to share foundation conducts several social outreach activities across the United States throughout the year. Life and Soul health fair is an annual flagship event of its local chapter in Houston and the next health fair is scheduled for Sept 16th, 2017. Please visit www.lovetosharefoundation.org or call us at 281.402.6585if you are interested in knowing more about the organization.

Table Tennis Championship Tournament in Seattle

The Love to Share Foundation America team along with the Pro Sports Club organized the 3rd annual table tennis tournament in the Seattle area. The tournament was held on Sunday, March 20th  2016 and 16 players participated  in this fundraiser tournament that would help fund medical facilities and schools in India. The participants were divided into two pools of players to play each other in a round robin fashion. The top two players from each pool moved to gold division knockouts and the next two players from each pool progressed to the silver division knockouts. The tournament lasted for a total of four hours and involved some very high quality talent. Former Maharashtra state champion Pradhumna Bhosale won the championship.

LTSF Volunteering at Minnie’s Pantry in Plano, Texas

Dallas Love To Share Chapter volunteered at Minnie’s Pantry  in Plano on Saturday,March 19 2016.  Many youngsters volunteered with zeal.  The volunteers helped in packing lunch boxes for more than 200 people. It was indeed an humbling experience to see how something as simple as a juice box or a cereal bar are valued when they become part of such bags that reach them.

Musical Performance at a Senior Center in Dallas

The Youth wing of Dallas Love to Share Foundation Chapter, conducts a musical performance at a Senior center   once every month. The performance for the month of January’2016 took place on 24th. The children presented their musical talents and spent some quality time with the residents. The cheer and the excitement the kids bring to the residents and the appreciation the residents demonstrate are priceless.

‘Purpose of Anger’– A Workshop in Houston, TX

On Friday,December 18th 2015, 2015,  15 people assembled at the New Life Plaza in Houston, TX  to gain better understanding  on one of the most fundamental yet one of the most complicated and potentially harmful emotion – anger. The interactive 2 hour workshop was led by Mr.M.K Ramanujam from Love to Share Foundation. He  explained how or what causes anger, how people express it (the aggressive stance shouting, arguing, throwing things or the passive aggressive stance- “silent treatment”) and what the effects of anger are on the individual as well as on people around him.

 He then gave a four step process on how to be mindful when one got angry. The four step are Observe, Feel, Need and Request (OFNR). The first step – Observe, involves taking a step back and analyzing the situation and trying to separate the event from the underlying cause that triggered the anger. The second step – Feel, is to understand the feelings(fear, hurt, pain.etc) that are coursing through oneself. The third step – Need, is to recognize the underlying unmet need that is getting projected as anger. The final step – Request, is to know how to place a polite request based on the observation, feelings and need combined with an actionable item and not a demand to the other person.

The interactive workshop was very well received by everyone.

Mantra Meditation at M D Anderson Cancer Center

On  Thursday December  17 2015, at the Main Hospital Building of M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Mr. Ramanujam – Lead Speaker of LTSFA, led a meditation session addressing a distinguished and diverse group of Head of Departments, Oncologists, Radiologists, General Physicians, Pharmacists, and Researchers along with personnel from Administration and the Department of Finance. Mr. Ramanujam seamlessly took them through the ancient time – proven Indian approaches to meditation. His vivid examples of de-cluttering the mind gave a clear understanding of the meaning and utility of meditation. This was followed by an interactive session on Mantra Meditation, where over 65 professionals chanted the ‘Mahamantra’ in unison for 5 – 10 min. The participants later spent some time with Mr. Ramanujam, getting their questions answered and expressing their gratitude for giving them a unique insight into meditation. Beguiled by his deep understanding of the subject and the downright clarity of the presentation that spoke volumes of Mr. Ramanujam’s own experience, M D Anderson has invited him to conduct more frequent sessions in the coming years. Love to Share Foundation America expresses special thanks to Dr. Warren Holleman and Katrina Wright with the M D Anderson Cancer Center’s Department of Faculty Health for arranging this exclusive session for the second year in a row.

‘Harmonious Communication’ workshop at Lawrence BerkeLey National Lab, Berkeley CA

As part of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s(LBNL) Scientific Networking Division’s(ESnet) effort to create inclusive workplaces, the division invited Mr M K Ramanujam to conduct a 2 hour workshop on “Harmonious Communication for Effective Conflict Management” on December 10, 2015.

The purpose of the workshop was to understand how conflicts arise and how to resolve them effectively such that no lasting scars are left behind. Mr M K Ramanujam covered the following topics:

Why conflicts arise?

• Difference between acceptance vs resignation

• How to filter the signal and leave out noise in any verbal communication

• Identifying the underlying need in a request

• How to frame acceptable requests.

The workshop was attended by 35 employees from diverse backgrounds and was video streamed as well to remote participants. The workshop was concluded with two teams of volunteers applying the concepts to resolve an imaginary workplace conflict. Overall, the attendees found the workshop extremely valuable.

‘Purpose of Anger’- A Workshop in Seattle

On Sunday, December 6th 2015, at the Old Redmond Schoolhouse, Sri Ramanujamji lead a “Purpose of Anger” workshop from 2PM to 4PM.  There were 30 attendees who attended the event with the hope of understanding the root of their anger and learning techniques to tackle it.  Sri Ramajunamji started off by talking about how observations turn to evaluations, and finally become judgement and how if we are conscious of all this, it is possible to respond as opposed to react in situations when anger takes over.  He talked about the need to explicitly analyze the mind for unfulfilled needs when anger kicks in.  Once the need is identified, he stressed the importance of fulfilling that need to stop anger in its roots.

Towards the end of the session, everyone took a small break for snacks following which, Sri Ramanujamji invited six attendees to share their overall thoughts about the workshop and what they found most useful.  Numerous attendees personally interacted with Sri Ramanujamji at the end of the workshop and had a one on one question and answer session.

Life and Soul – 2015

Love to Share Foundation America conducted its Fifth Annual Health Event – Life and Soul 2015 at New Life Plaza successfully and associate with a lot of service minded individuals.

Mayor of Manvel Ms. Delores Martin and Texas State Representative Ed Thompson kicked off the event. Mayor of Pearland who was out of town sent us a message that ‘his heart was at the event’.

Over 250 people attended the event and received over 20 different screenings – (Height, Weight, Body Mass Index, Body Temperature, Blood Pressure, Heart Rate, Blood Glucose, Hba1c, Cholesterol screenings, Vision and Glaucoma Screenings, Lung Function Test, Oxygen level, Breast Exam, Bone Density, EKG, Carotid Doppler, Hearing Screens and Mammograms) free of cost, as always there were no fees what so ever in this event as well.

50 people were administered Influenza Vaccine and 75 bicycle helmets were given away to children to prevent head injury.

More than 20 businesses and individuals sponsored and supported Life and Soul this year. Pearland Medical Center (in their booth they gave away 250 Teddy Bears!), Tuscany Village Skilled Rehab and Internal Medical Associates of Houston and Dr. Richard Johnigan participated in the cause actively.

10 physicians and nurse practitioners volunteered to participate in this event and provide their services. In addition, over 40 volunteers from various walks of life selflessly assisted in the smooth conduct of the fair.

Love to Share Foundation also received two grants this time – from Texas Medical Association and Walmart.

Numerous educational institutions and businesses partnered with Love To Share Foundation to conduct this event. A few of them are – HEB (conducted 205 Hba1c screenings), Texas Eye Institute, Alvin Community College, Walgreens Pharmacy, University of Texas Medical Branch, South East Cardiovascular Associates, Genesis Hearing Clinic, Third Coast International, Bandy and Associates, Cooling Towers, US Imaging, Sleep Center of Kirby, Duke Medical and Resmed.

Raffle draws were conducted using dignitaries and door prizes were given out to the winners every hour. Some of the key volunteers were honored at the event as well. The participants were extremely satisfied and many of the patients, after having attended the fair, went back to their communities and churches to spread the word about the program!

The event received overwhelming positive feedback, including ‘wide variety of testing given completely free of cost’, ‘a well-organized event’, ‘very courteous and friendly people’.

Donations from sponsors, partners and local community and gift-cards, vouchers and gift certificates from local businesses went a long way in supporting various different aspects of the program.

The event is a brain-child of the couple Dr. Lekshmi Nair and Jeevan Nair.

Cultural Fanfare at Houston

In keeping with its objective of promoting and protecting various cultural art forms, Love to Share Foundation organized a week-long dance festival from December 21-27th 2014, at the Meenakshi Temple in Houston, in conjunction with the ‘Madhura Utsav’ event hosted by Global Org. for Divnity.

Leading dance artists from India practicing different dance forms  like Kuchipudi, Odissi, Bharatanatyam, etc. were invited to perform with their students  Students of Ms. Sravanthi Modali (Kuchipudi), Ms. Rathna Kumar (Bharatanatyam), Ms. Supradipta Datta (Odissi), Ms. Indrani Parthasarathy (Bharatanatyam) and Ms. Padmini Chari and Ms. Surabi Veeraragavan (Bharatanatyam) displayed their respective dance forms for melodious music, which enthralled the audience.  On one day, a “Street Play” was also staged by the youth.  Around 45 little children enacted episodes from an ancient Indian Text called Bhagavatam, underlining values that are core to our being like faith, compassion, charity, gratitude, mutual respect and love.  The event was also performed as a fundraiser for the various projects of the Foundation.

As a token of thanksgiving, food was served to all the participants and audience on all seven days.