KHNA would like to bring attention of the community to this temple project in Canada. As the president of the temple committee, Dr. P. K. Kutty says, "Every group of Indo-Canadians except the Hindus from Kerala has its own traditional place of worship in Ontario. About ten years ago, a group of well meaning Keralite Hindus got together with a mission to fill this void. Their dream was to construct a "Guruvayurappan Temple " in Brampton . Not that Guruvayurappan can be brought to Brampton, but to construct a Krishna Temple exactly like the one in Guruvayur, the main deity being Lord Krishna and the minor deities being Ganapathy, Ayyappan and Devi. We were not interested in constructing a "temple plaza" or a "private" temple! As the group could not afford to buy the necessary land within the city limits the "dream" remained a "dream" for the next 2-3 years. It must have been a divine gift from Lord Krishna that, suddenly, in July 1999, a group of about thirty individuals came with an offer to donate up to two acres of land for the construction of the temple in Brampton! "Guruvayurappan Temple of Brampton: a not-for-profit corporation, was registered in June 2002. With the blessings of Guruvayurappan, our "not-for-profit" corporation got "registered charity" status without hassle or delay! The city of Brampton conducted a public hearing on July 5, 2006. We are pleased to report that there were no objections. The council has decided to accept the application and the process is underway to assess it. We hope to get a favorable response from the City in the not too distant future.The other challenge was to get permission from the Government of Canada to get a priest and Thanthri from Kerala.. It took considerable planning and hard work. Thanks to all my co-directors. Mr. Divakaran Namboothiri arrived here with his family on the 22nd June, 2006. We are indeed very fortunate to have such an accomplished and reputed priest and thanthri to guide and lead us in starting the Krishna Temple".
The temple website (www.guruvayoor.ca) gives much further details. The temple is now on an ambitious program to raise over $5 Million to construct a temple in the same model as Guruvayoor. The urgent need is to convince a bank for loans. It would help the temple committee greatly if they can receive a certain number of loan pledges (note that funds are not required now). Please help by indicating if and how many units of $5000 you may be able to spare as a loan to the Temple, for a period of one to three years. They will collect the pledges to show that they can raise the necessary funds, so as to approach the banks for a loan of $2 Million. KHNA requests the community to consider the request.
The temple committee president informs KHNA that a proper channel has been established for charitable donations from the US as well and the donors can be issued a charitable donation receipt acceptable by the IRS. Please contact Dr.P.Karunakaran Kutty (39 Roundstone Drive, Brampton ON L6X 0K7, Canada. Phone 905-497-4699, Fax 905-497-4688) for any further information
To help the Brampton temple project with a loan pledge, please download the Loan Pledge Form.