In the last 20 years, the Hindu American population in Texas has risen from 50,000 to over 150,000 today.
Welcome
In the last 20 years, the Hindu American population in Texas has risen from 50,000 to over 150,000 today. It’s even expected to rise to over 220,000 by 2030 as the first generation of American-born-yet-proudly Hindu (ABYPH) parents build roots and start families of their own on American soil.
In Houston alone, we have 32 (soon to be 35!) beautiful mandirs spread far and wide in various suburbs and metropolitan areas and 60 mandirs total in Texas as a whole. As we experience this growth, there has been an increasing struggle seen in the children of the ABYPHs. Alongside juggling the formative years of their lives, they often struggle to balance the Americanization of the culture around them with the rich Hindu values from their heritage.
With the mission to inspire this new generation of Hindus to embrace and adapt to the Hindu way of life, many youth and family camps were created here in Texas. Until now, these youth and family camps have been renting established campgrounds, often building their camps around the cultures that the existing facilities were originally made to accommodate... well, no more!
As the first campground built with the Hindu American in mind, the Texas-Hindu Campsite will be designed as a bridge between all of the Hindu communities across Texas that are in need of a uniquely Hindu place of gathering.
Why do we need this?
In order to demonstrate the desperate need for this new campsite now, we present Sagar Patel, a member of Hindu Heritage Youth Camp’s Steering Committee:
“In 1985, HHYC was a one-day camp of a hand-full of community members. Today, HHYC hosts two five-day sessions of 200 campers total led by 30-40 volunteer youth counselors. In 2014, after nearly 30 years, our campsite was abruptly sold and we spent months searching across Texas for a site that would house the 160 campers and 25 counselors we had.
After contacting over 30 sites, we finally found a campground that could house us, with room to grow! But to our surprise, within 1 year, we had hit full capacity. At 208 campers and 40 counselors, we were forced to create a “waiting list” for our camp. Over the last three years, we've hit our maximum capacity within 30 minutes of opening registration, and have had to turn away over 150 campers on average each year. That number grows each year.
And every couple of years when we renew our campsite contract, we try to find a campsite larger than this one, but quickly re-sign in fear of losing this campsite, just like we did our last one.”
The potential for growth and the restriction to do so has been a heartbreaking side-effect of HHYC’s need to rent a secondary-party’s campground for their camp, and from witnessing that heartbreak grew the idea for our very own Hindu Campsite. There is no better time to strike than now, and as Mahatma Gandhi said... “The future depends on what you do today!”
Will it work?
It’s simple. We know this will work because we’ve seen it work. We’ve researched the impact that cultural escapes can have on the Youth of America. Growing up in the melting pot of the United States is still a fairly new circumstance compared to other deeply-rooted cultures that have had centuries to ingrain their communities with traditions and heritage. We’ve seen cultures that are ahead of ours in population-growth struggle under the increasing presence of American-born youths, and have observed the ways in which they were able to handle the balance between teaching pride for both nationality and religion.