Wilkes-Barre Mayor George C. Brown hands a proclamation to community leader Mona Pande. The mayor recently proclaimed Aug. 10 as Mona Pande Day in the City of Wilkes-Barre, in honor of her support to front line workers and others in need, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.
                                 Submitted photo

Wilkes-Barre Mayor George C. Brown hands a proclamation to community leader Mona Pande. The mayor recently proclaimed Aug. 10 as Mona Pande Day in the City of Wilkes-Barre, in honor of her support to front line workers and others in need, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

Submitted photo

Tired of ads? Subscribers enjoy a distraction-free reading experience.
Click here to subscribe today or Login.

Among the holidays Mona Pande usually observes each year are Diwali, which is a Hindu celebration of the new lunar year, and Holi, which is a spring-time celebration of color.

This year she had an entirely new day to celebrate.

As Mayor George C. Brown recently announced in a formal proclamation, Aug. 10, 2020 was Mona Pande Day in the City of Wilkes-Barre, so named in recognition of “the impact that her leadership has had on the Greater Wilkes-Barre Community during these trying times.”

Her family made the day festive by taking Pande out to lunch (at CK’s) and dinner (at Kevin’s), and giving her a little cake iced with the words “Mona Pande Day.”

And they had several months of their matriarch’s good deeds to celebrate.

As the mayor spelled out in his proclamation, in six paragraphs that each began with the word “Whereas,” Pande, of Shavertown, guided the fund-raising efforts of the Indian American Association of Northeastern Pennsylvania that provided “personal protective equipment (PPE) and food to front line workers and to those most in need during the COVID-19 crisis.”

Earlier this year the association, which Pande leads as president, donated thousands of face masks, face shields and PPE gowns to the Geisinger Medical Center and Wilkes-Barre General Hospital.

The group also provided certificates for a free lunch to local first responders and other essential workers including the Wilkes-Barre Police Department, Fire and EMS department and public works employees, provided breakfast sandwiches and coffee from Canteen Park on Market Street, Kingston, to the community, and provided food for St. Vincent de Paul Kitchen, the Back Mountain Pantry and Ruth’s Place women’s shelter.

But Pande’s efforts went beyond food and protective equipment.

She also helped arrange free virtual COVID-19 medical lectures with live question-and-answer sessions that gave members of the public a chance to learn from a cardiologist, immunologist, pulmonologist, rheumatologist, infectious disease specialist, two psychiatrists and a psychologist.

Following in Pande’s footsteps, the proclamation mentions, her daughter Leana taught virtual art classes via Zoom and donated the entire class fee toward food donations.

Out of all her volunteer work, Pande said, the most rewarding aspect has been working at the St. Vincent de Paul Kitchen in Wilkes-Barre, where she and other members of the Indian American Association of Northeastern Pennsylvania personally helped prepare meals before the COVID-19 crisis.

“You feel that you’ve really done something,” she said last week, noting that in recent months volunteers haven’t been allowed to help with food preparation or serving because of the pandemic. “But we were just there on Tuesday. We went and gave them a check.”

Pande has plans in the works for more virtual medical lectures, perhaps with a pediatrician and pulmonary physician, that the public can access through the Indian American Association of Northeastern Pennsylvania (iaanepa.pa) Facebook page. “You don’t have to be a member,” she said. “Anybody can come and watch and message the doctor.”

Educational talks with a gardening expert, an artist, and representatives of Candy’s Place, a cancer resource center, are also in the works.

Pande is also planning to put out a newsletter for Pennsylvania’s Asian/Indian community, with the first edition to be published soon.

“Sept. 1,” she said. “That’s what we’re shooting for.”