25/12/2025
Merry Christmas everyone! The best time of the year for heart-warming stories, isn't it?
Well, this is a story that started in 2019 in Bengaluru. A few of us working at Tally Solutions, had joined hands to lay the foundation to TallyTogether - our goodness initiative, under the leadership of our Chairperson Ms. Sheela Goenka. It was then, that we came across an exciting organisation, whose primary offering was to act as the bridge between corporates and NGOs. On one hand, they were making resources available to NGOs on the ground, and on the other hand, they were helping organisations achieve meaningful goals in their causes of interest, while providing their employees with relevant volunteering opportunities. Quite aptly, they called themselves Goodera 😊
What particularly caught my attention back then, were some of the in-house volunteering events Goodera used to conduct at our office. These events would be driven by some enthusiastic and dynamic folks, who went by the cool title of Goodera Goodness Ambassadors. As someone, who had been regularly hosting events on stage right from my school days, this format was an unexplored one, and I wistfully added it to my bucket list.
Cut to 2024. When I moved on from my corporate life in mid-2022 to pursue a full-time career in the performing arts, I took a look at that bucket list and started talking to the good folks at Goodera. After several start-and-stop conversations, I was finally onboarded to the Goodera India team of Goodness Ambassadors in February this year.
And what a year it has been! Over the last 10 months, I got the opportunity to host 37 events at Kolkata across the offices of 9 esteemed organisations - Akamai, Amazon India, Bajaj Life, Ericsson, EY, IBM, IDFC First Bank, Titan and Wipro! Not to mention, the absolute privilege for championing the causes of 8 NGOs - Dakshini Prayash, Dhwani Foundation, Dignity Foundation, Elixir Foundation, Lotus Feet Foundation, MANT, Mukti and Ruva Foundation!
And the icing on the cake? During the Karma Summit 2025 - Asia's largest corporate volunteering summit with over 200 companies and CSR leaders in attendance, I was featured on the Goodera Hall of Fame - recognizing the top 30 hosts from across the world!
As your read this, the United Nations have declared 2026 as International Volunteer Year - and that gives me the hope to look forward to a year filled with more causes, more events, more laughter, and most importantly - more smiles, more tears of joy.
