Who is Ginny Chudgar?

My complete name is Mrs. Virginia Moll Chudgar, but I like to be called Ginny, the nickname that I began using as a student at Central Catholic High School in Reading, Pennsylvania.  I attended Alvernia College, proceeding along the familiar academic path. And then, unexpectedly, I fell in love with a gentleman from India.

Meeting and marrying Ashvin Chudgar in 1968, a year before my college graduation, changed everything for me. Outwardly, I moved from being in the classroom as a student to being in the classroom as a substitute teacher; inwardly, my world suddenly expanded to include the fullness of Indian culture, the joys and responsibilities of marriage, and, within three years, the mind- and heart-stretching vocation of motherhood. With babe in arms, I visited India and was exposed to an ancient culture whose cuisine, music, religion and entire lifestyle were as foreign to all I had known as I could imagine.

By the time I was twenty-five, the doors of my mind and heart had been opened wide. Back from my visit to India, with a new mother’s zeal, I began what I’ve been doing ever since—sharing my constantly expanding sense of all that life can be. Along the way, I

• co-founded Children in Hospitals of Berks County, an organization that championed family-centered medical care (at a time when that concept was almost unheard-of in Pennsylvania);


• served two terms on the Wilson School Board, where I furthered my organizational skills in the realm of grassroots politics and policymaking;


• promoted ecumenical understanding by being, for many years, the Secretary of the Board of the Reading-Berks Conference of Churches;


• worked with the Festival of Faith Committee, to advocate for full congregational inclusion for persons with disabilities; and


• began to work as a freelance writer, editor, and consultant.

• the Reading and Wyomissing Area School Districts,


• the Reading Public Library,


• the former Catholic Shop in West Reading; and


• St. Joseph Medical Center.