My Ice-cream Dansala.

This Vesak Poya Day, I wanted to organize an ice cream dansala; this idea haunted in my mind, month before the Vesak. So, I initially shared my concept with my husband, who said that while the idea is nice, but don't trouble people; if you have the money, you can do that. I wasn't satisfied with his response; I know that my husband doesn't like troubling other people, and that's why he gave such a reply. However, without support from others, it is difficult for me to do it alone. Later, I discussed the matter with my son, and he agreed and said, "Okay, ammi, let's do it." Then I inquired with my daughter-in-law, who was also willing to do so.

Next, I submitted my concept to my front house neighbor, who I knew would encourage me by providing ice cream. Later, my husband agreed to give me a 4L pack of ice cream, my child another 4L pack, and my front-door neighbor another 4L two packs. Now, I have 20L ice creams, which is more than enough for our scheme people.

Because the ice-corn may be finished by Vesak, my front-door neighbor encouraged me to get them early. Therefore, I gave my husband Rs. 5000/- to bring six boxes of corn, each of which contained 125 corn.

When my neighbors found out about my dansala plan, two more members donated money to purchase ice cream, and another brought me two ice corn packs. My sister also donated me a 4L ice cream pack. Now, I have 32 liters of ice cream and 1000 ice corn. We were now happy with all of the donations, but the only issue was the rain. Even though it was pouring, we decided to set up dansala, as people love to eat them amidst heavy rain. My son's friend is a Highland agent, so he ordered all of the ice cream from them. We got a 4L one for Rs. 1750.00, even though the exact price is Rs. 2150/-.

Our housing scheme possesses a welfare hall, where we decided to arrange our dansala. The day before the Vesak Poya, my son went to that highland agent and purchased all of the ice cream, which he stored in my sister's deep freezer at her supper market.

We decided to start it on Vesak Poya Day night at 7 p.m., after making Buddha pooja at our Buddha statue on welfare grounds.

On Vesak Poya day morning, few of us went to our welfare premises to set up the hut and install Buddhist flags throughout the grounds. As my sister's supper market closed on Poya Day, later we went there and brought our ice cream packs and placed them in the freezers of our several neighbors’ homes.

On Vesak Poya day night, we served ice cream to everyone who attended Buddha Puja as well as those who walked by our welfare center. We started at 7 p.m. and lasted until 10 p.m. Everyone helped us to serve ice cream and halt vehicles that were passing by our dansala. The rain occasionally bothered us, but Dansala continued to do well. Everyone in our housing scheme praised me for my leadership and asked me to organize next year too, stating that they also support me.

The lesson was that we can do anything if we work together.

Thank you for reading my post.