What is the Cambrian Indian Community?
It has been an eventful year with so many new people moving into the Cambrian Park neighborhood. We had a super successful Diwali and we are now ready to welcome 2017. But before that, we have had a ton on interest in what CIC really is and how people can be a part of it. So on behalf of the Board of the Cambrian Indian Community, I wanted to write a bit about who we are and what we do.
From our annual CIC Utsav 2016 event
Inception
The idea for a formal non-profit organization that caters to the needs of the Indian community in the Cambrian Park neighborhood area was seeded quite a while back. The early settlers as we refer to them now did not have the strength in numbers to make one such vision a reality. About 3 years ago, the community started showing up in larger numbers in our events that prompted a real effort from a dozen or so people to formalize CIC. We had a fund raiser for the legal costs to seed an organization. As a result of these efforts, the Cambrian Indian Community was registered as a CA state non-profit organization on July 4, 2014.
What does CIC do?
The CIC’s mandate revolves around bringing the Camrian Indian community together through events that celebrate Indian culture and tradition and also contribute back to the society we live in and that has allowed us the freedom and independence to organize in the first place. As part of this, the CIC has the following annual events in its calendar.
- Discover India (Feb/Mar)
- Easter Celebrations (Apr/May)
- Utsav Cultural Festival (May/June)
- Mehendi Night (Sept/Oct)
- Diwali (Oct/Nov)
In addition to these annual events, we have members of the community step up and add new events to the calendar. Some examples are CIC Sports Day in Summer 2015, CIC Karaoke in Summer 2016 and more. Any member of the community can help organize new CIC events. For more details see this blog post and reach out.
Beyond these cultural milestones, the CIC family continues to periodically do Seva at local shelters to give back to the community. CIC also contributes to local schools and charities to foster a vibrant community.
The CIC Board
The CIC Board currently has 5 members-
Latha Santhosh (President)
Krithika Santhanam (Vice President and Secretary)
Sachin Holla (Joint-Director)
Rangaprabhu Parthasarathy (Joint-Director)
Manish Sabu (Treasurer)
How can you stay in touch?
This blog and website are the only official voices of the Cambrian Indian Community. At times, members of the community share details of local events in social networking groups like Facebook and WhatsApp. The best way for someone to stay in touch with community events is to periodically check this blog.
What next?
As an organization, we have some great ideas on how to grow and contribute to the community and the neighborhood we have embraced as home. But we are sure you have some wonderful ideas too. So please reach out via email or drop one of the Board members a note.