Hiking funds

Completing an eight-and-a-half-hour hike into the Grand Canyon over the first weekend of June, Tinaz Dhunjisha and her Chicago team raised over $ 180,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, notes a write-up in the August 2006 issue of the newsletter of the Zoroastrian Association of Metropolitan Chicago (ZAC). She was the recipient of the ZAC Youth Award for Outstanding Leadership in 2005 and as youth committee chair played an active role in planning events and activities for the community at large and the youth in particular, mentions a write-up by ZAC secretary Roxana Du­bash.

Tinaz Dhunjisha (left) and her dedicated team of fund-raising hikers

"It definitely took me time as I got older and grew as a person to fully understand just how special our Zoroastrian community is, and how important it is for us young people to take measures to ensure that it will continue to thrive for future generations. I hope we will make our parents proud by expanding upon the framework they have laid for us as the first generation,” conveyed Dhunjisha. "My vision for the future (of the Zoroastrian community in North America) is that we persist as a community where our unique culture and religion are celebrated by promoting Zoroastrian education and values, both within and outside of our modest community. I hope we can persevere as an open-minded community that can readily adapt to changing times in order to meet the needs of our future Zoroastrian generations which will be more Americanized than the last. This is not to say that our identity as Zoroastrians should be diluted in any way, rather we just need to educate our young about our religion in such a way that they understand its relevance to their daily lives,” says Dhunjisha who graduated in 2004 with high honors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a BS in marketing and currently works as a group insurance client services consultant for MetLife Inc. Outside of work she makes time for tennis, hiking, volunteering for community service, traveling, cooking and spending time with family and friends.

Parinaz M. Gandhi