Diwali Festival of Lights is a time to come together and celebrate with our friends and family. It is a time to reflect on the past year, and to look forward to the future. This year, we are just so pleased that IRCC could host our 10th Diwali Festival of Lights after a three-year break. We are overwhelmed with the roaring positive feedback we have received and humbled by how many people just wanted to be there on November 12 and have a good time. Thank you to the entire community for making the IRCC Diwali Festival of Lights a huge success! Thank you to the audience members who came out in large numbers to attend our event and support IRCC. We are grateful to all those who participated, including the food and non-food vendors, kids and adults in the first segment of the program, and non-profit organizations who exhibited their missions and promoted our event to their memberships. We are blessed to have had high school students competing in the High School Pataka dance competition coming from local schools and from afar, and the many college students who participated in the Diwali Dhamaka dance competition and exhibition, and of course to the talented judges who gave their time and expertise to carry out the difficult task of identifying the winners. This was the first time we had a college dance team from outside Florida (Emory Karma Bhangra) participate in Diwali Dhamaka.
We were able to welcome dignitaries who have supported us year after year, such as Steve Geller, Commissioner, District 5, and former Mayor; Tom Wood, Commissioner Pembroke Pines; and Colonel Ahmed from Broward Sheriff’s Office.
This year, we are proud to have had the support of our Diamond sponsor Vaccines.gov and are appreciative of Quick Family Urgent Care for stepping in as the vaccine provider.
All our Board and committee members spent hours, days, and nights in preparing for the event. It often became a family affair, with our spouses and children and other family members also pitching in selflessly. We have no words to say “thank you” to our own Board members and their families, and friends as well. We must acknowledge all the help we received from so many different people – student volunteers, adult volunteers, high school emcees, our graphics designer, form developers, website designer, the printers, the venues that allowed us to place our flyers and posters – and so many more. Many of our friends helped us with the front desk, the rangoli booth, delivering drinks and trophies, inviting dignitaries, securing sponsors, supervising the vaccine clinic, tallying dance competition scores, donating water pallets and mango drinks, and much more. We are grateful to every single one of them for their hard work and dedication.
A huge thank you goes out to the Broward County Convention Center for providing such an amazing venue, as well as the sound, electrical and lighting engineers who seamlessly managed these requirements. The decorators also deserve a special mention for creating a warm and welcoming space.
Putting up an event of this magnitude is a massive financial burden. We are grateful to James Shermer, Grants Administrator at Broward County Cultural Division for helping us with the grant process. A big thank you goes to our sponsors – Royal Bengal Logistics – our Platinum sponsor and Vaccines.gov – Diamond sponsor. We are blessed to also have our other sponsors unfailingly support IRCC year after year – like our Gold sponsors American Heritage School and JM Family Enterprises, and Silver sponsors Patel Brothers, Jalaram Produce and Spice of India.
It’s not enough to just host the event – we need the news broadcast to the world, which our supporting TV channels have ensured. Thank you to Miami Channel 10, Kerala TV, and JK TV for covering the event, and to Eric Yutzy for his dynamic hosting of the evening program.
It is people like you that make our community so strong. If we have accidentally missed mentioning you here, please trust us when we say that the omission was definitely not intentional. We are grateful for your generosity, and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We look forward to celebrating many more Diwalis together in the years to come.
Thank you once again to everyone who helped make this event possible. We hope that everyone who attended had a wonderful time! We hope to see you at next year’s Diwali festival of lights on Saturday, November 18, 2023.
