Welcome to Balvihar 2016-17 School year. Thank you for registering your family to our HTS Balvihar. Our Balvihar is one of the oldest Indian American Cultural Schools in United States. Almost 4 decades of selfless volunteers joining hands to raise the young minds in our community. On September 11th we will be accepting Checks from all the families who have registered but not completed their payment transaction in the lobby area. This will also be when you are required to sign up for prasad and volunteer. Registration link is provided right under this page as google forms.
Balvihar starts at 10 am, Arrive at 945 am
We start the Balvihar sharp at 10 am. So kindly arrive at 945 am to get yourself settled. First we recite the mantras from the Prarthna Book. This is when we make important announcements regarding that day if needed and then move on to the learning part of the Balvihar.
Language - 10 : 15 Religion - 11 : 10
We will have an hour of Language class followed by an hour of Religion Class. We have Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telegu teachers devoting their time to volunteer for our HTS community. In Religion class your child will learn about our Epics, Puranas and other philosophies that are pertinent to our Rich tradition. We try to make it as applicable to the kids of this generation as well as morally inspiring. If your teacher requests your phone number to join a whatsapp group please oblige to make communication fast and effective.
Noon - Community Mentor 12 30 pm - Aarti & Prasad
At noon we meet in the Assembly Prayer Temple Hall to inform the families about next class as well as introduce a guest to enlighten us with relevant topics as Community Mentors. This will be a brief introduction regarding a trending Educational Topic that would be very useful for learning minds.
You may sign up, connect a family member, or a Friend who would be interested to share their expertise in the fields of Religion, Language, Science, Technology, Arts, Engineering, Math, Medicine or Meditation.
Around 12 30 pm, We do Aarti and distribute Prasad and snacks to all the students. This wraps up our Balvihar module for the day.
Balvihar Cafe !
We have Balvihar Cafe in the basement which serves Idli, Dosa, Vada, Upma from Breakfast - Lunch time. You may buy Tea,Coffee or meals that benefit our Temple.
Interactive session with Guest Mentor 1- 2 pm.
If your curiousity has been piqued, Join us immediately after to hear more from our guest Mentor. This will be an hour long session. 1 - 2 pm.
A little bit about Community Mentorship : Our children are growing in a time when the next big profession is as unique as the one after it. It is a beautiful time when Science is as celebrated as Arts and in order to encourage that we invite the experts in all fields to bring forward their experiences and share it with our Balvihar Family. Your presentation needs to be delivered in 2 formats.
1 - A 15 minute introduction about yourself, your field and its contribution to the society and what makes it unique. Conclude it with the latest information in that field and why our Balvihar students age 6 - 16 should know about it.
2 - A 45 minute session, as hands on and interactive as possible that invites students to get more involved in your field by bringing materials and slide shows concluding with a Q&A session of 15 minutes.
Why community mentoring in Balvihar ? We are a group of highly ambitious Americans. Working hard and reaching a respectable level in society is ingrained in us on a foundational level.
Aiming for Higher education and balancing peace of mind is how we thrive. Balvihar on a sunday morning is a really great place to meet, chant mantras, learn a language, discuss religion and then network among each other. We never know when our kid might find his or her field of interest in the lecture of an expert sitting next to you.
We will hopefully know each other a little bit better once this program settles in and starts charging up young minds. I respectfully seek your best wishes to make this happen for all of us.
Mandatory Volunteering :
We require all families to volunteer for atleast one balvihar date. We will have a desk arranged right next to payment area for you to put down your information. Please check the balvihar calendar and find the most suitable date for your family to spend a day helping out balvihar. Every Family should pick a date for Prasad, 40 pieces of Fruit will be bought on your behalf. Washing it and placing it in front of Bhagwan is requested. After aarti, your child may distribute to other kids at Balvihar.
http://www.balviharallentown.org/calendar-2016-17.html
Volunteers of the day will check with the teachers if they need help with their area, seating for students. They help clean the rooms and inspire other families to do the same. They make sure students leave their shoes in right place and encourage families to not be in lobby area but join us all in aarti. They help teachers put away white boards and markers after class is done and distribute snacks as the students leave the temple hall.
During Celebration of festivals Dussera, Deepavali & Holi - Volunteers help with food, packing, distribution, arts - crafts and other logistics. Together we become the family that we want our children to grow up into. We also have interesting activities like Spelling bee, Charity Drive and are hoping to have presentations from students who are inspired from the community mentor program. We have our annual day at the end of the year that marks the end of the Balvihar School year. This year we are hoping to give out scholarship to atleast one deserving Balvihar Graduate.
I am always available to answer any of your questions or concerns but in order to receive regular updates subscribe by providing your email address in the box provided in the right margin of this article. You may also download HTS app available for free on Google Play store. We will be using that for notifications for homework and other information.
Purvi Bhojani - Our Assistant Balvihar Director and I along with our strong team of Teachers will always do our best to help you in any way that we can.
Thank you. Take care,
Pratibha Roochir Purani