Close to 300 people attended the annual picnic of Friends of Madhya Pradesh New York New Jersey (www.FriendsofMPNYNJ.com) Sunday, September 14, 2025, at Rosedale Park in Pennington, New Jersey. This Picnic tradition started in 2015.
The Picnic had close to full participation, with many families on the wait-list, organizers said in a press release
Like every year, authentic Madhya Pradesh (M.P.) food made on location, and cultural and traditional activities were the highlights of the fun and activity-filled day.
The breakfast consisted of Indore’s traditional Poha, Jalebi and Saboo Dana Wada. For lunch, M.P.’s food delicacy Poori, Shrikhand and Halwa were served by the volunteers. Midday snack was Kulfi Falooda.
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The venue was decked to celebrate the theme of ‘Malwa Mela’, a famous region of MP with Indore-Ujjain-Mandu, housing ethnic picture booths and placards. All attendees had name labels that included the name of the town they hailed from. That resulted in reconnecting with classmates from schools, colleges, and native towns.
To ensure that first time attendee families felt welcome, their name labels had distinct colors so all could immediately know and interact with them accordingly to make them feel welcome.
Special all-day activities were planned by the volunteers for small children and seniors, including Twisted Antakshari, Twisted Musical Chairs. The “Flameless Cooking Contest of Father-Child” was a Big Hit.
India’s Deputy Consul General in New York, Vishal Harsh was the guest, and spent 3 hours interacting with families.
Friends of MPNYNJ has been organizing the annual picnic and other events since 2015. Managed totally by volunteers, the organization’s sold-out picnic has become a reunion for people from M.P.
Some of the volunteers who organized and managed the event were Families of Amit Mishra, Akhilesh Ladha, Shaman Jain, Kapil Samadhiya, Manoj Kulseja, Jitendra Muchhal, Rajesh Mittal, Raj Bansal, Ajit Jain, Ashish Vijayvargiya, Sanjay Modi, Anand Rai, Nikhil Sharma, Lavanya Vyas, Sonal Shukla, Surya Sharma and several others.