San Joaquin Kannada Sangha (SJKS) is an all-volunteer 501(C)(3) corporation bearing EIN # 84-2615041. All contributions and donations to SJKS are tax deductible, so please donate generously.
SJKS has been established to invite and bring together Kannadigas (people from Karnataka – a state in India) living in San Joaquin county to: celebrate, preserve and promote the culture, heritage and language facets of Karnataka and, be engaged in socially responsible activities like giving time and effort for volunteering, take part in community service projects and donation drives for charitable causes.
The word ‘culture’ has many connotations, but SJKS looks at it in two principal ways:
- The Arts (art, music and literature)
- Way of life (language, attitudes, beliefs, and values)
SJKS will promote meaningful activities that will celebrate the cultural roots, and the underlying emotional connections that Kannadigas share with one another.
By enabling its people to express their artistic and creative sides, SJKS helps keep the values dynamic and active so they are continuously learned, purposefully advanced and generationally passed. In doing so SJKS will help accomplish shared community goals that would individually be difficult to achieve.
By conducting charitable and volunteer activities, SJKS will help Kannadigas assimilate into the local and mainstream American society. The charitable activities typically may include:
- Community volunteering
- Service projects
- Fundraising and Donating for a cause
- Encouraging Small and local community friendly businesses owned and run by Kannadigas
Small and local community friendly businesses run by Kannadigas will be given exposure so their businesses can grow. All of the above activities will be undertaken accountably, trustfully, honestly, and openly with no affiliation to any religious, political or faith based institutions.
Our Mission
- Our mission is to inspire Kannadigas, to come together, connect and contribute to promote the cultural, heritage and linguistics facets of Karnataka and, to become involved in giving back to the community.
Our Vision
- Our vision is to establish San Joaquin Kannada Sangha as one of the top ten Cultural and charitable organizations in San Joaquin county.
Our Logo
Our logo embodies the thoughts of 15-20 people on the team. An early form of the fan wheel inspired by the blue in US flag makes up the center of the logo, and it symbolizes early evolution of karnataka’s language and culture. It also represents the wind energy harvested from our high wind county.
The map of Karnataka represents the geography of our ancestry, our origins, and the yellow and red filling are colors taken out of Karnataka’s flag. They also represent colors highly regarded in the traditions of Karnataka.
The Red elements around the wheel represent people, the members of our Sangha – throwing their hands up in joy and, positioned in a pattern. The pattern represents our community that is in complete harmony with its ecosystem.
Our Tagline
The tag line is about coming together to celebrate our way of life, to stay connected as an organized group displaying great collective behavior, structure and functioning. It means evolve together and develop as a community because of shared biological and sociological links and cultural heritage acquired through our lineage. It is all about the struggle we undergo to connect our “janmaboomi” (india) to “karmabhoomi”(USA), especially as responsible parents raising children in America with our ethnic value.
It is being connected to the awareness about “who we are”, and how we reflect that awareness in all our actions to enrich a myriad of ecosystems we live and criss cross in, but most importantly the community we live in.
Connections are our parents, our families, our teachers, our friends, land we grew up on, air we breathed, water we drank, the food we ate and on an ongoing basis the job we do and the employer we serve. It is about being grateful to our past, the present and our fellowships and nurturing all of such connections by giving back to the community.
English