Driven by a vision of uniting Indians, I have been searching throughout my life for a cause that will unite all Indians around the globe that is divided by background, languages and highly diverse Vedic-belief-system. It is a well-known fact that Indian community do not have any support system in place that takes care of its community members during personal family crisis. Last, but not least, 2nd and 3rd Indian-American generation is lacking in pride of its rich Indian heritage. In fact, most of 2nd and 3rd Indian-American generation is unaware of its rich culture roots. All above weakness require strength of entire community to overcome.

 

A major opportunity arose around Covid-19 pandemics in 1st quarter 2020 when Covid-19 virus hit USA. Independent of financial status, profession, business, belief system and background, each person felt the pain of being locked-in at home. Fortunately, based on my life-long community services I had already developed Indian-American volunteer structure that consisted of various Indian-American organizations and passionate individuals.

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On 1st week of March 2020, most of corporations asked their employees to work from home. Within few days, the voices of lockdown became louder. On March 10, 2020, I invited organization representatives & individual community members from my past community involvement to discuss how Indian community can support local community in such unprecedented times. We anticipated hardship to be faced by senior citizens, local small businesses as well international students. 

 

After a lengthy discussion with organization representatives and individual community members it was agreed to initiate 3 projects immediately:

 

• Senior Citizens

• Small Business care

• International students
   

Following individuals took on various assignments within 1st week of initial conference call.  

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• Swati Pranjpe, Seema Shah, Ramnath and Dr. Bindu Suresh agreed to lead Senior Citizens care group.

• Lipsa Sheth and Ruby Kaur agreed to lead International student project.

• Vikas Bhutada, Akshay Shah, Shama Kenkre agreed to lead small business project. 

     

Multiple volunteers took on various supporting tasks and formed their own teams:

• Gargi Choksi from Art of living create the zoom account and email

• Shweta Shah created Facebook group

• Shweta Shah, Ashwini Dole, Radhika Shukla and Tina Singh were assigned to PR work.

• Tina Singh was took on youth management task

• Alka Srivastava (DIWA), Lalit Sethi (DES) and Chandru ji Acharya (SAAVi) offered their organizations for managing money matter and nonprofit status.

• Savitha Balaraman volunteered to raise funds.

• Nidhi Puri initiated organizing the volunteers. 

• Anand Pappuri signed up to create MICS website. 

• Dr Bindu Suresh, Ramnath Vutukuru, Sanjay Shah, Neelesh Patel, Chintan Shah, Savita Monroe, Adarsh Suneja  Mamtha Maheshwari, Vinay Mishra, Sunil Sivaraman and few others were took on various volunteering tasks.

 

The rest is just history. Many new volunteers joined and took lead on various projects. Overtime, more projects were created to support the community during pandemic. A complete list of projects is listed below that were implemented by community members between March and Oct-2020 who organized themselves in newly created volunteer organization, called MICS. 

 

Around June 2020, MICS project leaders expressed interest in filing nonprofit status for MICS. After consideration of all arguments, I drafted the MICS structure, mission, bylaws and projects based on my vision of Indian-American community organization that is capable of addressing weaknesses described above. Chandru Acharya & Vikas Bhutada played a key role in enhancing the initial draft. With support of CPA Priti Agarwal, MICS filed for nonprofit status around end of June 2020. 

 

In July 2020 MICS received nonprofit status. In Aug 2020, On Oct 5, 2020, I asked Hema Rachmale and Dr. Anvita Bitta Saini to lead the MICS organization in capacity of MICS Board chair and MICS-EC Chair. Both agreed to do so. For myself, I chose the role of Advisory Chair and “Guardian” of MICS.

 

In order to create strong bond among Indian-American organizations, representatives from other organizations were reserved a seat on MICS board and advisory board.

 

I hope, that with the strength of affiliated organizations and selfless service by MICS volunteers, we shall create a strong base for a strong platform for coming together and working together.

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MICS Plant (Organization structure vision):
 

If you consider MICS to be a plant, MICS Guardian role shall be invisible like water, air and sun that nurture the plant with vision & inspiration. MICS mission and base projects are the seed of MICS plant. Board, advisory board and EC committee shall be like strong stem that supports its branches to grow. Project leaders are like strong branches of the tree. MICS volunteers shall be the flowers and fruits of MICS tree who blossom and serve the community. The smell of MICS actions shall be spread in all direction