Happy School: Uniforms for students of Hutatma Rajguru School Teachers’ Day, 5th September 2014 was a Red Letter Day for the girls of Hutatma Rajguru School at Pandav Nagar, Pune. On this day the school had a visitor, the First Lady of Rotary District 3131 none other than Chandralekha Aranha. The occasion was formal handing over of Uniforms to 50 girls of the school, sponsored by RC Pune University under the Happy School aspect of Rotary TEACH Mission. RC Pune University came in contact with this school in July’14, just about the time when the new Board of Directors had been installed. In their visit to the school on 14 th July by PP Rekha Patil – Director, Youth Services, First Lady Shobhana Paranjpye and PP Pradip Patil found that the school has meager resources and the students are mostly children of very underprivileged families. Most girls are daughters of housemaids or women in very low paid occupations. Many parents are unemployed, and some girls themselves have to work to make ends meet. Many girls also come from migrant or semi-nomadic communities. While the school has lots of needs, the teachers informed that they were about to start Girl Guide program, and the girls just cannot afford Uniforms required for it. Hence this was announced in the Club meeting, many members spontaneously came forward to contribute to the cost of one, two or more uniforms. Soon the number sponsored reached 50 uniforms and RCPU arranged procurement. In addition, PP Kshama arranged many sets of clothes for students’ daily use. On receiving the material, the school requested formal handing over. It was decided to do this on Teachers’ Day and the Club invited District First Lady as the Chief Guest. Also invited to speak on the occasion, was ‘Laughter Man’ Rtn. Makarand Tillu. At the program, the school enthusiastically welcomed all Rotarians. After ceremonies, Club President Dileep Paranjpye felicitated the school Headmistress on the occasion of Teachers’ Day. He then spoke about “What is Rotary?” and “What is an Interact Club?” His speech was followed by a laughter filled talk by Rtn. Makarand Tillu who kept the audience spell bound with his enjoyable way of telling why water conservation is important, how it should be done and so on. Not limiting himself to theory, he even visited various areas of the school and found a number of leaking taps, immediately provided replacements and demanded that the school should identify at least 50 leaky taps in response to the 50 uniforms given by Rotary. First Lady Chandralekha was her own unpretentious self. After formally handing over uniforms, she spoke kind words of appreciation and encouragement to the students. At the end of the program, she personally participated in an oath ceremony when everyone pledged to Save Water for the Benefit of Mankind and All Living Beings. This was the culmination of RCPU’s first step into the TEACH mission. Supporting the endeavor were individual sponsors Rtns. Sharang Pande, Satish Mohile, Kshama Gangoli and Shobhana Paranjpye, while donors who could not attend the program included Rtns. Jitendra Joshi, Shridhar Bhelke, Sunil Joshi, Shruti Kuber, Anant Deshpande, Vidaynand Joshi, Shalaka Ghaisas, Bharati Barhate and Pramod Gokhale. The greatest support, not just financial but also in terms of planning and coordination came from PP Rekha and PP Pradip Patil