India Community Center

Over sixty years ago, India’s Founding Fathers asked all Indians to respect the national symbols of India, to cherish its heritage and preserve its composite culture (Constitution Part IV-A). To honor the importance of those ideals, a small group of Indian Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area (all successful entrepreneurs) decided to create a broad-based, inclusive Community Center. It’s mission would be to preserve the culture, values and heritage of India for future generations based on the vision and ideals of the Founding Fathers of India.

The India Community Center was conceived as a place where every generation of the Indian Diaspora could find comfort in various facets of their culture, preserve and practice unique traditions and celebrate festivals and social milestones in a welcoming environment. It was also designed to be a center where people of other cultures can explore and experience Indian traditions and values.

In addition to cherishing heritage, the ICC founders also decided that promoting brotherhood and fraternity in the spirit of the constitution would be even more important in a distant land. So uniting the diverse community also become one of ICC’s goals. And finally, incorporating community service as en essential pillar of this center was considered vital to living up to traditional Indian values. Thus came into being our mission of UNITE. SERVE. CELEBRATE

THE ICC MISSION

To promote Indian culture and values by providing social, cultural, recreational and community programs, thereby uniting the Indian community, and raising awareness about Indian culture in the local community. ICC welcomes all without regard to racial, ethnic, regional, religious, political or socio-economic background and its mission seeks:

ICC is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit, non-religious, non-political organization.

ICC BACKGROUND

The ICC came into being in February 2003 with the efforts of the Godhwani brothers, Anil and Gautam, first generation Indians and successful entrepreneurs, whose foray into the non-profit world began with the launch of the India Community Center. They were joined by other successful Indian American entrepreneurs and professionals to build and grow the organization. ICC is financially supported through membership fees and community donations. It has also received some limited corporate, foundation and government funding. Today it is the largest and only Indian American community center of its kind in North America. The ICC’s 38,000 sq.ft. facility in Milpitas, CA (which it owns), and an 10,000 sq.ft. Table Tennis Center serve the entire Bay Area with a professional staff and hundreds volunteers providing a wide range of programs and services.