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  • Our Story

    In an age when spacecrafts investigate the possibility of life in outer space, it is hard to believe that India is among top five nations for out-of-school children of primary school age, with 1.4 million 6 to 11 year olds not attending school.

    Of course, it is easy to launch into a diatribe about the deplorable living conditions of the destitute. The average Indian youth does just that. How many take the initiative to alleviate these conditions? The number is anybody’s guess!

    A similar setting at Cup-A-Joe, Raleigh, North Carolina: Three graduate students at NC State University sipping on their lattes, pondering on the plight of India’s multitudes. Inspiration struck as the two cents change from their coffee bill was set down on their table. “Let these Two Cents contribute towards the noble cause – Hope for a better India.” Thus was conceived Two Cents of Hope (TCH). And the rest, as they say, is history. ‘You must be the change you wish to see in the world’, remarked Mahatma Gandhi. Inconceivable as it seemed, to even imagine a better tomorrow for the teeming millions, these graduate students strongly felt it takes one step at a time to offer them a glimmer of hope – in the form of Education. Their vision translated into Our Mission.


     “Little drops of water,

    little grains of sand,

    make the mighty ocean

    and the beauteous land.”

                                     -Julia Carney


    Education could help that child who stops your car at the traffic light offering to wipe your windshield earn his/her wages. Isn’t educating a youngster akin to giving vision to the blind? TCH is a registered, tax exempt, non-profit organization dedicated to educating the impoverished – thereby potentially liberating them from decadence. Be it Project Paatashaala (March 2006), which catered to over 200 school children, or the ongoing partnership with Dharithree Trust, which aims to help children with special needs, we are trying to generate a ripple that we hope will transcend shores and make an ocean of difference.

    We believe in the power of cents. Yes, cents! Coins that you tend to collect in jars and neglect. Pennies you acquire at the grocery store which you probably will never care to see again. When collected and relayed to India, they can pay for a child’s education! Just remember – Every cent counts.

    We are striving to spread our wings by contacting like-minded individuals across the world, and we hope to bring the light of education to many more!