Ganpati mandals to lend helping hand to underprivileged children in city

City-based Ganpati mandals and individual households are trying to help under privileged children.

A Tardeo resident circulated a message to donate stationery as prasad to the Lord Ganesha rather than offering sweets. The idea was to further distribute the stationery to city-based needy children from an NGO.

Kruttik Parekh, a resident of Tardeo, said, "We believe that celebrating Ganeshotsav in an eco–friendly way is the need of the hour. Every year we keep eco-friendly Ganesha as our theme but this year we wanted to take it a step further by donating study material and stationery to underprivileged children. We are spreading the message among the guests visiting our house to offer notebooks, pens or pencils instead of offering any kind of prasad, flowers and money. Through our drive, we intend to reach out to maximum students and help them in their education."

A Lalbaug-based Ganpati mandal recently distributed school aid to the children of farmers in Marathwada. Members of GD Ambekar Marg (Kalewadi) Sarvajanik Utsav Mandal this year have planned to show the Ganpati idols in Lalbaug to the children. Ramesh Kale, chairman of the mandal, said, "The children have never seen Ganpati idols in Lalbaug area. The mandal has made arrangements to bring around 40 children from the Marathwada region to Lalbaugh and we will be showing them the Ganesh idols from various mandals in the area."