Vibha Dream Play 2013
(Photos: Priti Sarda)
Innovative. Well planned. Excellent place for fun sport. These were some of the words making their way around the arena, on the 16th of February 2013 when the 10th Annual Vibha DreamPlay was hosted at South Forsyth Middle School.
The Vibha DreamPlay is an annual Chess and Table Tennis tournament. This year saw the addition of an Art competition to raise funds for projects supporting underprivileged children in India. The location served well for all the artistic delight, intense thinking, and physical competition that took place throughout the day. Hallways was filled with smiles, kindergarteners accompanying parents and grandparents, and all of the 400 participants eager to compete and stake their claim on the trophies.
Vibha DreamPlay 2013 was fully organized by the youth. From initial groundwork to gathering sponsorships and registrations, planning and execution were charted by the youth, dedicated to giving back to the world. This included informing school clubs and sports and art academies, posting on Facebook, and tweeting. Youth team leaders were Khushboo Sarda (Lakehill Vibha Youth), Manasa Chimpiri (Northview HS Vibha Youth), and Rachana Kotapalli (Alpharetta HS Vibha Youth), along with Volunteer Management Lead (Sanket Mehta) and Publicity Lead (Rishi and Vikas). Deadlines and short-term goals were met as early as December. Parent coordinator Priti Sarda commented, “It was fascinating to see students from middle school and high school dedicated for more than three months in the tough school environment to give back to people around the world.” Outstanding Youth Volunteer award winners, Rachana Kotapalli and Deeksha Malhotra, were proud to be making an impact on the world at an early age. Throughout, the main goal of Vibha was kept in mind: helping underprivileged children.
Feedback from previous years helped make the event even better. Chess was made Rated for the serious players while keeping the original open championship available for adults and new players. The change was welcomed, and there were 150 Chess participants in different categories. Table Tennis started and finished promptly, and the record breaking 200 TT participants were accommodated well. The newly added Art Competition had a great response with 50 artists of all ages putting their creativity on paper.
The Chess Tournament saw attendance from youth players everywhere in the region, with record turnout in both the rated and unrated competitions. Novices could test their skills against the most experienced, and there were all sorts of players. Tournament Director Keith Sewell was behind the smoothly run rated competitions, where many had an opportunity to shine. A special gratitude must be shown for Steve Schneider, founder and director of Champion Chess and author of the Scholastic Chess series, who helped coordinate the chess tournaments throughout the day. The Scholastic Rated Champion Chess was won by Shanmukha Meruga, and the Scholastic Unrated Open Chess was won by Rithik Konda Doddla.
Table Tennis brought in almost 200 individuals and teams. Archana Athalye, a former state level champion in India and founder of Archi’s Table Tennis Club in Atlanta, coordinated the Table Tennis event. This year's divisions were mens, womens, mixed, and U-15. Players did not fail to impress, engaging the audience and maintaining fair play. Krishna Venkatesh bagged the Men's championship, and Kim Fuley became the champion in Women's category. Srikar Yendapally, Atharva Athalye, and Brandon Koh came up winners in the under-16 tournament respectively in Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced categories.
In the Art Competition, Rashi Patel (ages 4-6), Shriya Nayak (7-9), Nikhil Kumar (10-12) and Lavanya Chellam (13-16) were winners. The 10th Annual Vibha DreamPlay was a success, and Atlanta Vibha Youth is growing stronger and flourishing. Youth were given freedom to show their leadership and employ new strategies to make the event more effective. The result: record breaking funds raised and maximum participant satisfaction.
Vibha is grateful for the support received from title sponsor K-MACS, Serenity Infotech, and all other sponsors, volunteers, and participants. Srinivas Vangimalla and Dilip Tunki of Serenity Infotech gave away the prizes and noted that they felt it was an honor to work with Vibha for a noble cause. For complete results, please visit http://wiki.vibha.org/Event_01:Dream_Play_2013.
Website Bonus Feature
Results:
http://wiki.vibha.org/Event_01:Dream_Play_2013
Tournament Details:
http://wiki.vibha.org/images/Pre-Event_Registration_2013_PDF.pdf
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