TCF Sacramento Chapter Holds Annual Fundraiser
By Ras H. Siddiqui
The Citizens Foundation (TCF) Sacramento Chapter held its annual fundraiser at the SALAM Community Center in Sacramento, California on August 9, 2025. It was a full house once again, with some welcome fresh faces as the Sacramento chapter slowly transitions to younger leadership, guided by its founders, the old guard without whom none of this would have been possible.
Currently listed as the Greater Sacramento Chapter Team on the TCF website are Arshad and Nadira Alvi, Asif Haq, and Omar Malik plus two new names Rehan Alvi and Arsalan Zafar whose relative youth will Insha’Allah guide this chapter to continue doing its good work into the future.
TCF-Greater Sacramento is now almost 10 years old, and this writer can take some pride in reporting that Pakistan Link has been a part of their journey from its kickoff meeting in Roseville. Two Pakistani American tech luminaries, Asghar Aboobaker and Javed Iqbal, brought the organization to the Sacramento area by inviting the late Amjad Noorani along with Laiq Chughtai and Asad Mohiuddin of the Silicon Valley Chapter to introduce TCF to California’s state capital. And as they say, the rest is history, and a lot of hard work has been done more recently by Arshad Alvi Bhai and Nadira Behan and the team.
Now back to the fundraiser. The evening started off with a fine Qur’an recitation along with its English translation by Ibrahim Quraishi . The emcee for the evening, Faisal Y. Ali, was introduced next on stage by Arshad Alvi and he did a fine job throughout the evening, sometimes tag-teaming with Arsalan Zafar. Faisal started off with highlighting the work that the Alvi’s have done for TCF-Sacramento and shared the immense need for this effort in Pakistan. And what came next was a real show of American and Pakistani patriotism as local Girl and Boy Scout troops formally presented the colors (flags) of the two countries, the Red White and Blue - Stars & Stripes of the United States and the Green and White - Crescent Moon and the Star of Pakistan. This was followed by playing the national anthems of the two countries while all in attendance remained standing and some also sang along.
A skit on the lack of access to education in Pakistan was also presented by a group of girls, presenting Horia, a girl in Pakistan who wants to go to school but her family just cannot afford it. They then hear about TCF and enroll their daughter. Years pass and that education becomes the key to her success. Hardship becomes success and not just one, but many lives are changed in the process. A great message.
“Sohni Dharti” was also sung on stage to the delight of everyone present, especially those who understood the words and immersed themselves in the nostalgia. Certificates of appreciation were handed out to the kids by Arshad Bhai for being great Youth Ambassadors of TCF. Subsequently a story “The School with the Yellow Door” which proved to be quite moving. A break followed as Maghrib prayers were held in the adjacent SALAM Mosque.
The program continued with Rehan Alvi presenting a detailed view of TCF work in Pakistan and following up with the work that its Greater Sacramento Chapter has done to support the cause there. Armed with slides Rehan delivered a very professional presentation. We learned that TCF has been around for about 30 years now. It started off with just a handful of schools and is today running over two thousand all over Pakistan with over 300,000 students enrolled with 67,000 having graduated already. Many of the TCF schools are in fiscally impacted areas so some of their students do not have to travel far to get a free education. Uniquely, all TCF’s 14,700 teachers are female. TCF is also involved in adult education “Aagahi Adult Literacy Learners” which has impacted over 221,000 people.
And let us not overlook the fact that TCF’s emphasis is on providing quality education to the children of Pakistan. TCF Alumni have been able to achieve a four times higher academic achievement target than many of their other national counterparts. And, last but not least, Rehan shared TCF’s future goals for educating the children of Pakistan. It is to educate two million kids by the year 2030 or as they put it “2,000,000 Agents of Change” in the country. And they are doing and planning all this through donations from the Pakistani Diaspora, especially through the fifty active TCF chapters in America.
The TCF Greater Sacramento Chapter has also done its share as Rehan Alvi highlighted. It started off in 2015 by adopting three schools and one vocational center and in 2018 was able to fund and build a brand-new school in Pakistan. And in times of crisis since then TCF Sacramento has continued this support during floods and the COVID pandemic. And here we are in 2025, and the chapter has a lot to be proud of thanks to its leadership and the generosity of its donors.
And speaking of generosity, a formal fundraiser followed conducted by Deya ElGhassein, a Civil Engineer, and former Chairman of the Board of MCF who is not of Pakistani origin but volunteered to assist the Sacramento Chapter. This writer thought that the funding target mentioned was a bit high, but it was reached and even slightly exceeded. For that we must thank all the donors for their generosity. And let us not forget to appreciate all the hard-working volunteers who made this fine evening possible.
To conclude, TCF- Sacramento must be recognized for continuing to support the children of Pakistan who have dreams to fulfill but lack educational opportunities. Pakistan has the sixth largest population in the world, and it is sadly second in the number of children out of school. TCF is the largest private effort trying to bring change through education. Repeating some old wisdom here, the Chinese philosopher Confucius once reportedly observed, “If your plan is for one year, plant rice; if your plan is for ten years, plant a tree; if your plan is for one hundred years, educate children.”
(Independence Day greetings to all our Pakistani readers)
