Dear Family & Friends!

Thank you for visiting my page.

As most of you know, I trained and ran the Rocky Raccoon 50 Miler race as part of Team Asha earlier this year. I am also training and will be running two half marathons in the next few months, one on Sept 26 2009 (Hardest Half in Texas) and second one (still undecided) !!

Training had been fun but hard, and had involved a lot of commitment in time and effort for my first 50 miler but has been pretty light this season for my half-marathons. I am doing all this, as I keep reminding myself on my runs, for a cause Bhaskar & I absolutely love and support. I am running as part of Team Asha this year to raise funds for a unique effort supported by Asha Austin which serves as a model farm for the farming community in Thiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu so that the local farmers can understand the age old practices of sustainable agriculture which were used extensively in India.

The idea is to lead by example and show the farmers that organic farming is a sustainable form of agriculture which is symbiotic with nature. The resource center provides a number of facilities to the local villagers including indigenous alternate methods of income generation and economic development like organic farming, artisan skills in weaving, rainwater harvesting, tailoring and embroidery, pottery, carpentry, bee-keeping, dairy, vermin culture etc. Learn more about this exciting project here.

Since August 2009, I started volunteering a few hours a week with a local community garden (Sunshine Community Garden, Austin) to learn more about organic farming practices and at the same time, get some hands-on experience. SCG prides itself in providing an urban oasis for local Austin dwellers to grow their own organic food and flowers. To learn more about my volunteering experiences with SCG, stay tuned with my blog.

For this initiative to succeed, it needs your support!

I have pledged to raise $100 for every mile I run in my race. All the proceeds from my runner page go towards supporting Bharathi Trust Resource Center. Please contact me to sponsor my race and help me reach my fundraising target as I strive to reach my finish line at the upcoming half marathons.