The Joy Of Giving : IISc Notebook Drive

Today when volunteering for "help the needy" initiative by IISc, I was reminded of the wonderful experience I had as a volunteer for the "Notebook Drive". 

NBD or the NoteBook drive is one of the great students initiative at IISc like many other social & environmental initiatives that include help the needy, tree plantation etc. The objective of NBD is providing notebooks, stationery etc., to poor students who otherwise have to drop out of their schools simply because in course of filling their stomachs, they fall short of money to buy notebooks. NBD, started in 2002 by a group of students in IISc. Every year during May-June volunteers collect money from the students and faculty to support government schools in and around Bangalore. The support is not in money but in useful items such as notebooks, pens, utilities for drawing etc, given to the government school students.
 

This year too, it started with donation stalls outside all the three mess during the dinner hours. Beside busy schedule of everyone here, it was nice to see people taking out some time for the society and the amount of donation was generous. With the donation of around 6-7 lakh INR started the planning on what copies and stationaries should be brought in what quantities.

More than 25000 different copies and stationaries including pencils, eraser, sharpener, scale, pencil boxes etc were all kept in the staff quarter.

Though the distribution was scheduled for almost a week covering 26 different schools in and around Bangalore, I could volunteer only for a day and the experience was wonderful. Almost 10 hours on road and in schools, the experience was worth the time. That day we covered 7 schools and gave notebooks & stationaries to more than 700 students ranging from class 1 till 10. Starting with a very small school which was run in a single room, had just 15 students, class 1 to 5 & 1 teacher, we ended with a govt school which had more than 150 students, classes 1 till 10 and was divided into two campus, primary school & high school.

The journey that day started at 8 am from the college with 4 people on 2 bikes, one person sitting beside the driver's seat & two people sitting at the back of the tempo along with all the stuffs which included notebooks, stationaries & sports item for each school. Every school, however big or small, welcomed us with a big smile. The happiness and smile on the face of the kids on receiving the stuffs was worth thousand words, especially when some sports items including cricket bats, balls, frisbee etc was given for the school. Though not many, but I managed to capture a few smiles.

Each of these schools got lunch from Iskon under the 'Akshaya Patra' program and when at the third school, it was already 12:30pm. Thus when offered for lunch, we could not resist the offer and had lunch with everyone. With tasty sambhar, rice & curd, we were content with our stomach & at our hearts (seems the sambhar given there was better that what we get in mess).

By the time we all came back to college, it was around 5:45 in the evening and after being on road for 10 hours on a sunny day, we were all dead tired. But at end of the day, it all seemed worth.

That day I realized the true meaning of "the joy of giving". I realized that day happiest people are not those getting more but those giving more, that like love, joy also increases on giving. 

 

A beautiful and inspiring quote that sums up the essence of the NBD, is by Henry Drummond "There is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving" and the second "True religion ...is giving and finding one's happiness by bringing happiness into the lives of others."