American Sikh community pitched in $10,000 to help save their Cali home town 4th of July firework show. – PB/TK
Sikh Community Saves Town’s Independence Day Fireworks Display – By Alex Seitz-Wald / July 4 2017
When the mayor of Visalia, located in California’s agricultural Central Valley, mentioned to a local Sikh businessman that the city of 120,000 might have to forego a July Fourth fireworks display due to financial concerns, the religious community jumped.
The Sikhs chipped in $10,000 for the festivities, which will also benefit a children’s charity.
“Visalia considers this to be very generous and helpful. We appreciate their show of patriotic support, as one of our newer groups of American citizens,” Visalia Mayor Warren Gubler told NBC News.
The donation is part of a new nationwide campaign to educate Americans about Sikhs that launched earlier this year with $1 million in TV advertising featuring Sikh families playing football, discussing their love of “Game of Thrones,” and explaining that “Sikh values are American values.”
“Our core central beliefs are profoundly American: Racial equality; gender equality; religious tolerance,” said Gurwin Ahuja, a former Obama administration appointee involved with the campaign.
Continue to nbcnews.com article: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/sikh-community-saves-town-s-independece-day-fireworks-display-n778056
