ISV Distributes 36,552 Books in Annual Prabhupada Books Marathon
By Raxit Jariwalla
Dear Devotees,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
ISV’s annual books marathon ‘The MSF of 32,000 Books, which began in the last week of September 2011 was concluded on January 4th and the Final Results were offered to Srila Prabhupada and the Deities at the Wednesday night Gita class at the ISV temple in San Jose.
In a letter to Hrdayananda Prabhu dated 21 December 1974, Srila Prabhupada wrote:
“Print as many books as possible, this is my real pleasure. By printing these books of our Krishna Conscious philosophy in so many languages we can actually inject our movement into the masses of persons all over the world, especially there in the Western countries and we can literally turn whole nations into Krishna Conscious nations”.
Goal
In keeping with the mission of spreading Krishna Consciousness and giving mercy to conditioned souls, Team ISV organized its annual books marathon with a goal of distributing at least 32,000 books.
Summary
It turned out to be another major historic event, with ISV devotees distributing thousands of Srila Prabhupada’s books throughout the Bay area and dispatching them to other parts of the US, as well as doing some book distribution in other countries including, India, China, Germany and South Korea.
Book distribution occurred with much enthusiasm during practically all weekends of the marathon (MSF), during several Hari Nama Sankirtana performances in Palo Alto and San Francisco, during special events marking different festivals, on Srila Prabhupada’s appearance and disappearance days, Govardhan Puja Day, Thanksgiving Day, World Enlightenment Day, the day celebrating Advent of the Bhagavad Gita, during Christmas holidays and on the day of the new year.
Highlights
A major highlight of this MSF was distribution of large numbers of foreign language books, consisting of Vietnamese, Chinese, Spanish, Korean and Farsi titles, at various malls, shops and special venues. Other highlights included massive distribution of books and book packs via: (i) door-to-door distribution at large apartment complexes in several towns of the Bay; (ii) Sankirtana teams traveling to towns in the Sacramento/Folsom area; (iii) distribution at festivals, universities, temples, malls, stores, farmer’s markets, hospitals, special venues and through Sankirtana central.
Both adults and children were active participants in door-to-door book distribution. The Sunday-School kids and their parents organized several Kids Sankirtan outings with a goal of doing 4,800 books, succeeding in distributing 5,904 books and raising $3916 during this MSF. In addition, numerous cases of Bhagavad Gitas were distributed during temple programs, and thousands of Gitas (over 5,000 books) were dispatched for placement in motels all across the US, by MotelGita team members from ISV and other cities, most notably Boston. Several devotees made pledges to support MotelGita and others sponsored cases of Bhagavad Gitas or made donations to support Sankirtana at ISV.
During this MSF, Srila Prabhupada’s books were also distributed at Indian stores and other venues by the college preaching team and through Smart Boxes placed at various establishments by the Smart box team.
Final Results
All the scores from this MSF were compiled and here’s a summary of the Final Results.
In all,
Close to 150 devotees participated in book distribution
They distributed 36,552 books, surpassing the MSF goal as well as last year’s high of 31,099 books distributed during the Annual Marathon of 2010
ISV devotees raised $29,839 (including donations and pledges to MotelGita).
We are grateful to all the participating devotees, donors and sponsors who contributed to the success of this marathon, with special thanks to Team ISV members who led teams, Sankirtana leaders (Malini devi Dasi and Sri Krishna Purushottama Prabhu) who did the planning and His Grace Vaisesika Prabhu for inspiring us with this MSF of 32,000 books.
MSF of Thirty-Two Thousand Books ki Jaya!
Haribol!
Yours in service
Raxit Jariwalla
