A Simple Philosophy of Giving

From running in charity races to publishing a newsletter and maintaining a website for his temple, Sendil Rathinasabapathy has a simple philosophy about helping others.

"It is very important to give some time back almost every day," he says.

Rathinasabapathy, application development specialist lead, Information Technology for Ameren, is particularly active as a volunteer for the Hindu Temple of St. Louis.

"I’ve been a board member there since 2008," he says. "I’ve been involved in so many areas—fund-raising, cooking and selling food, managing some of the operations-related stuff in the temple."

Rathinasabapathy has been a member of the temple since 2000 and served as its president in 2010.

"It’s important, on top of my family time, to find some time to give back to the community," he says.

Rathinasabapathy does that in abundance, volunteering approximately 40 hours a month at the temple. Most of that time is spent communicating with the temple’s 700 members via the newsletter and the hindutemplestlouis.org Web site.

The message reaches a wide audience in and around St. Louis attending the temple, which is located on Weidman Road in West St. Louis County.

"I maintain the Web site," he says. "It’s very dynamic. I go there and update all the information, plus photos of all the previous festivals."

The newsletter is published every three months, in print and electronically.

"I’m the chair for the publication committee," Rathinasabapathy says. "On top of that, I do have to give edited articles to the newspapers."

He is also the chairperson for the committee establishing and updating the non-profit temple’s bylaws, constitution, policies and procedures. His responsibilities converge when he publishes any changes to the bylaws, policies and procedures in the newsletter. In addition, he acts as liaison, discussing the proposed changes with members during general meetings.

"I explain that to the general members and get their vote on it," he says.

Beyond working on the communication end of things, which takes a minimum of 30 minutes a day, Rathinasabapathy cooks and serves food for four hours every Sunday at the temple. Coordinating other volunteers – people who care about doing the right thing but don’t have the added motivation of getting paid – is the most difficult but also the most rewarding aspect of being a leader, Rathinasabapathy says.

The Hindu Temple Humanitarian committee donates sandwiches to the homeless through the Centenary United Methodist Church in downtown St. Louis the last Wednesday of every month. Satish Nayak, an Ameren retiree and chair of the Humanitarian Committee, Rathinasabapathy, and other volunteers make the sandwiches on Tuesday and Rathinasabapathy delivers them to the church.

Editor's Note: This blog was submitted by the Ameren Corporate Communications Department.