2020-July-08

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Coming Full Circle

BY REVATHI SREEDAR · PROJECT MANAGER · UNITED STATES

Giving back to others runs in my veins. Growing up in India, I saw my parents give selflessly to the family and friends around them. Little did I realize that their example was imprinting on my young mind.

The ICON team (left to right): Lavanya Vidhyasagar, Chetan Bhargava, Shashank Gopal, Naveen Kumar, Ronak Desai (executive sponsor), Vishnu Pendyala, Divya Sundaram, Revathi, and Pichaimani Rajesh Kumar.

When my husband and I moved to America with our baby son in 1997, I found myself challenged in new ways. My husband had an amazing job, but I had no outlets to give back and express myself creatively in my new life.

During my college days back in India, one way my creative side came out was through media. I’d even hosted shows for a local TV station. But in the U.S., I hardly knew anyone and had no extended family around. I felt caged — which was hard for a social bird like me.

I had to find a way to make friends and express myself. And so began my full-circle journey back to my service-oriented roots.

Bitten by the Volunteering Bug

The journey started when I found a flyer to volunteer at a Bay Area temple. I jumped at the opportunity, seeing it as my opening to meet people and give back.

Volunteering not only helped me connect with new people, it also brought out my creative side. Cooking is my passion, and I’ve always enjoyed hosting people at my home with delicious food.

To this day, I volunteer by cooking for devotees who come to the temple. I also volunteer to help cook food for the homeless in and around the Bay Area through various organizations.

Revathi has been a volunteer with the scouts since her boys were small. Here she is with her husband Sreedar and sons Sashank and Sidharth, who are now Eagle Scouts.

My world expanded again when I joined Cisco in 2012 and found Indians Connecting People (ICON). It’s one of the company’s employee resource organizations and aims to bring the Indian community together.

My first contact with the group came when I was pulled into dancing for ICON during its annual flagship celebration of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.

I immediately knew I needed to be a part of ICON. I was drawn to the sense of community, and it was a great way to meet fellow Indians and make friends with colleagues. I went on to find my niche within the organization.

Bringing the Indian Community Together

ICON was started in the early 1990s, and since then the network has gone from strong to stronger Our nine board members (of whom I am one) are like-minded people with varying roles at Cisco.

We work together to build a better, more impactful organization. We aim to make a difference in the community and continue to work toward a better future.

Giving Back to India

ICON has allowed me to give back to my homeland in ways I could never have imagined. Most of this has been through the Akshaya Patra Foundation, the largest NGO-run school meal program in the world, which serves 1.8 million children in India.

Cisco has a history of collaborating and fundraising with Akshaya Patra, spanning two decades. In the past five years alone, the ICON team has organized 15 volunteer events to support Akshaya Patra.

As an ongoing partnership, Cisco’s Community Relations team has organized lunch and learn programs for Akshaya Patra. These events offer our employees an opportunity to learn more about the critical work being done in India. They also create a more robust group of supporters within Cisco.

ICON has also provided support for disaster relief in India during the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, the 2018 floods in Chennai and Kerala, and today with COVID-19.

Inexhaustible Vessel

When Akshaya Patra reached out during the current crises, we immediately agreed to help.

We hosted a virtual comedy show to bring in a little laughter even in these difficult times while raising funds for the organization. The show centered on working from home and finding work/life balance. It was a fun evening with more than 125 Cisco employees attending and raising $2,500 for Akshaya Patra.

No child should ever go hungry, so I sponsor one child every year, in addition to my donation and fundraising activities. It costs just $20 to feed a child in India for an entire school year.

Akshaya Patra is a Sanskrit term meaning “inexhaustible vessel.” In Hindu mythology, it refers to a story in which a god provided a never-depleting supply of food to those in need.

The term resonates deeply for me, partly because of my love of serving others through cooking, but also because of the boundless generosity it evokes.

I am grateful to work for a company that exhibits the same spirit of boundless generosity. Cisco provides time to volunteer through Time2Give, so that employees can support a cause of their choice, and matching funds to many other global causes.

Will you share some of that generosity and stop a child from going hungry this year?