New Building Fundraising Update

12/11/2006

As we near the end of 2006, with the grace of Pujya Gurudev and the blessings of Pujya Guruji we continue to see immense growth in our Mission activities. Bala Vihar enrolment has been very strong once again this year, with overall student population exceeding 1350.  Our members are turning out in increasing numbers at all our yajnas, camps, pujas and other events.

Against this backdrop, the new building team has been working diligently on the new building endeavor to find a new home for the Mission. As you will recall, we had an overwhelmingly successful fundraiser on July 23rd this year. We started that evening with approximately $800K on hand and a goal of getting to $1.1 million. By the end of the day, we had contributions and pledges that brought our total funds committed or raised to over $1.2 million. Since the fundraiser, the pace of activity has continued, and we have made significant progress both on the fundraising as well as other fronts.

Most pledges that were made during the fundraiser have come in. So have additional contributions, as a result of which we today have over $1.6 million on hand. Combined with the funds we expect to raise from the sale of our existing properties and mortgage financing we can afford with our ongoing stream of income, we now have the wherewithal to proceed with the purchase of a building in the 20,000 to 30,000 sq ft range, at a total cost of approximately $4.0 million. We have already begun conversations with banks on mortgage financing and have complied with most of their requirements, including furnishing financial statements with an accountant’s review report.

We have engaged an architect firm, Archevon, to advise us on the project. Archevon is a very reputed firm in the Bay Area. They have advised many schools and not-for-profit organizations. Their past and current engagements include projects for the India Community Center building in Milpitas, the Sunnyvale Hindu temple, the Jain Temple in Milpitas, Challenger schools, Stratford schools and the Harker Academy. Their in-depth knowledge of the requirements for Indian religious and cultural organizations in general and for schools in particular will be very valuable to us.

We have also engaged Manoj Kapoor of NAIBT Commercial and Sushma Malhotra of Cresa Partners as our real estate agents to help find a suitable property. Manoj also advised the India Community Center on their building purchase in Milpitas. Between the two of them, Manoj and Sushma have many years of commercial real estate experience, and are also attuned to the needs of an organization like ours.

With Manoj’s and Sushma’s help, we have been actively searching for an appropriate property. Over the past couple of months, we have seen over 10 buildings, mostly in the Fremont-Milpitas-North San Jose area. As you might imagine, many pieces need to fall into place for us to proceed with a property – among others, the price needs to be right, the condition of the building needs to be suitable, parking adequate, and a seller who is willing to wait for the time it would take us to get appropriate approvals from local authorities for our intended use. Most buildings we’ve seen till date have met many but not all of these criteria. Two of these properties have been somewhat promising, though. Discussions with the sellers of one of these fell through, but discussions with those of the second are ongoing.

We will continue to work with the sellers of this second property and also actively continue the search for other properties over the next several weeks and months. We plan to provide you with another update in the new year. In the meantime, we look forward to your continued support for this endeavor as well as all other Mission activities.