Celebrations & Volunteering - A trip down memory lane!

So since I belong to India which is a land of festivals and celebrations, I have grown up admiring the coming together of people of all ages and religions to celebrate each and every festival. It didn't matter if it was a Hindu, Muslim, Christian or a Sikh festival, we all got together to celebrate! And the celebrations didn't just involve eating, bursting crackers, wearing new clothes, decorating the houses during holiday time, it meant a lot more! It meant reaching out to the less privileged and make them feel less unfortunate, make them feel loved and a part of the celebrations of the entire country.

We went out to orphanages, old people homes and even temples, where people who didn't have family or enough money to enjoy festivals the way they would have wanted to and distributed sweets, clothes and fire crackers. The smiles we brought to each face made our festivals lighten up even more and the feeling of having so many people blessing you was amazing.

The next day, since everyone's had so much fun bursting crackers, eating and drinking at parks and other places, there used to be litter all around so we gathered kids and other volunteers and picked up the dirt from our parks! Everyone felt good about it and it helped keep the place clean at the same time. I feel a lot of what I am today, is thanks to the volunteering and meeting people of all walks of life. I believe I started to appreciate what I had and how privileged my life was, after I started volunteering and helping people who didn't have a lifestyle like mine. It was a great feeling! A feeling of happiness, satisfaction and that of doing something for the community.

Every festival we celebrated, we'd donate an amount my friends and I had collected to organizations, like HelpAge India or CRY and our parents would match up the amount. HelpAge India even gave us trophies for the amounts we collected and that made us even more proud and kept us motivated to do more.
I think a major part of my childhood's memories are these celebrations that involved volunteering and meeting kids and elderly and spending time with them, giving them a chance to have a great celebration.