A Toast to Good Health - AIF NYYPC Annual Benefit 2009

The AIF New York Young Professionals Chapter dedicated its second year of fundraising efforts to help the Apna Clinic, a public health initiative of AIF. As part of its campaign, the Chapter held its annual benefit dinner, A Toast to Good Health, on Saturday April 11.

The Apna Clinic, to be built in the Mustafabad area near Delhi, will serve around 60,000 people with basic healthcare and education. This effort will provide much needed care to the poor population in the area, particularly the often overlooked maternal and child care segment.

A sold-out crowd of 200 people joined AIF at the trendy restaurant, At Vermillion, on Manhattan's east side, enjoying cocktails and mingling before sitting down for dinner and the evening's program. After brief introductions by Chapter Coordinators Nitin Sacheti and Sanjay Sharma, AIF's CEO Sanjay Sinho took the floor to discuss the mission of AIF and the Young Professionals' role in it.

The highlight of the program was an address by Mira Kamdar, acclaimed author and Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute focusing on socioeconomic development in India and the role Indian Americans played in furthering it. Grateful that the young professionals in attendance were so actively supporting AIF, and adamant that they continue to do so, she explained how AIF could provide the bridge between those participants and Diaspora giving.

The audience then participated in a live auction of two roundtrip, upper-class tickets from New York to London on Virgin Atlantic, donated by Spotnana, a boutique executive travel firm. The audience's enthusiasm was incredible and grew along with the bids. In the end, these tickets garnered over $5,000 for the Apna Clinic! Another lively auction for two tickets from London to India on Kingfisher Airlines followed that raised $1,700 for our cause.

Guests also had a chance to bid on silent auction items. Popular items, including lunches with AIF Trustees, were actively bid upon until the close of the evening at midnight.

All told, A Toast to Good Health raised over $14,000 for the Apna Clinic!