It is that time of the year again when people from all walks of life come together and celebrate the joy of giving. In its fifth edition, Joy Of Giving week will kick off on October 2 and will be celebrated throughout the nation. Last year more than 2 million people participated in 70 cities with 800 events registered (from small individual events to those involving more than 1,00,000 people) and approximately `30 crore was generated.
This year close to 100 companies, 40-50 apartments, 50 schools and two hundred NGOs will be participating in the event in Bangalore.
“Some events are private and some involve the public as well. We have around nine public event lined up this week,” said Rajan Narayanan, spokesperson for Joy Of Giving, Bangalore.
He added that the week is not associated with any organisation and people can come up with their own unique ways to give back to the society. “For example, I have organised a unique private event for domestic helps, gardeners, guards, milkman and drivers who work in our building in Banashankari. To thank them for serving us for so many years, all the residents have decided to organise breakfast for them,” he said. There are 400 people who will be invited for the breakfast. Also, Rajan and other residents have organised a small festival where the residents will be putting up stalls to raise money to give small gifts to all the 400.
Another unique feature of the festival is the wishing tree which will be put up across several corporate campuses from 2nd to 8th October and will have wish tags from six NGOs.
“Through this wishing tree, people will know what these organisations want. Last year we collected `5 lakh from just the tree,” he says.