Cornell Hindu Community Temple Room Fundraiser

The Fight From Closet to Community:

In the early 2000s, the Cornell Hindu Student Council (HSC) was founded with the hope of providing a spiritual home for Hindu students on campus. Our efforts to hold weekly services, cultural celebrations, and advocacy discussions have allowed us to grow our presence on campus, with events like Diwali and Holi seeing some of the largest audiences at Cornell. We are proud to have served the Hindu population at Cornell University for nearly 20 years and continue to advocate for a welcoming and inclusive safe space for all students on campus. The growth of our events (even making it onto the famous 161 things to do at Cornell) has allowed us to foster and support the vibrant community of Hindus on campus.

Despite these successes and the scale of our reach, we operated out of an eight-by-eight-foot storage closet in Anabel Taylor Hall for nearly 15 years. Our temple, our decoration events, our murtis, and our prayer materials were packed into this closet: a space that limited our ability to serve and engage with our community at the scale we wanted. Community members frequently expressed their discontent when our temple and idols were returned to a cramped closet at the end of our religious services and celebrations.

Over the past few years, we have been advocating for a dedicated chaplaincy--something essential to many religious organizations at Cornell. Despite a trial resolution from the Student Assembly in 2017, we remain one of the only religious organizations on campus without this vital resource. After an administrative mission from our dedicated board and the eventual support of the OSMM, CURW, and the dean, we were provided our own prayer space in 2019: a former storage closet (about the same size as the one we had been operating out of) under the entrance of a chapel.

Community members frequently reach out to us. They ask why we don't have an accessible physical presence on campus. They ask why one of the world's largest and most vibrant faiths has to operate out of two closet spaces at one of the largest educational institutions in the world. Frankly, we don't have a good answer for them.

However, our continued resilience and dedication to our cause is at a pivotal moment. With the support of the OSMM administration, we have finally been granted a larger space: a "Hindu Prayer Room" in Anabel Taylor Hall. This is a monumental step for us as we finally have the opportunity to transform our small, cramped closet into a more accessible, inclusive area: a temple. We do not want to lose the momentum that former members of our council have worked tirelessly to build over a decade.

To truly make this new space feel like a home, we are launching a fundraising mission to create a temple/prayer space in that room. The room will be vital in holding poojas, discussions, meditation areas and other activities that foster understanding and connection among students through meaningful community practices. Our goal is to raise funds for essential elements like a temple structure, traditional idols that celebrate our rich cultural heritage, prayer materials that are necessary for religious ceremonies, and the creation of a spiritual atmosphere.

The efforts and dedication of our board have secured us a room after years of administrative challenges: we now ask you to transform it into a home for Hindu students. We realize that what we've needed for all these years was a consolidated community response. As we reflect on our journey as an organization, we recognize and appreciate the resilience of our students and our community. We thank them for their years of patience and fortitude. Now, we ask them to support our effort because every donation, no matter how small, brings us closer to our vision. Thank you.

-Official Statement from the Hindu Students Council