Food for Life

An account by Janaki Mehta, a hardworking and enthusiastic volunteer and organising team member of Food for Life

The Food for Life team recently marked three and a half months of serving the homeless prasadam, six nights a week, without a single break during the lockdown and COVID-19 pandemic. Each day it still fascinates the team that they have managed to maintain this service with no interruption whilst facing completely unprecedented times.

In fact, it seems the service gets better and better each day. The team have had even more volunteers and drivers join the project since April. In addition, there have been even more food donations as the project has gone on. One of the guests remarked “Are you guys really the Hare Krishnas?” When the team responded “yes” he said, “Man, you guys have really stepped up.” Despite all the obstacles it seems the service has really blossomed! Along with the regular serving at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the team have also managed to serve daily at Trafalgar Square.

The team have been extremely blessed to have the generosity of Food for All, Parasuram dasa and his team in allowing them to use their kitchen, their volunteers as well as any ingredients they might need.

The team have had the incredible ongoing support of Paresh Chhabhadia from Om Gayatri Traders who has gone out of his way to supply mineral water for the homeless. This water supply has literally been lifesaving because many of the water taps which were previously used by the homeless are unavailable due to the pandemic.

Meghrav have regularly supplied the team with an abundance of fresh fruits, which made for a healthy and nutritional supplement to the meals for the homeless. Anand Halai and family of Gradegold Catering have also regularly provided hundreds of fresh packed fruit boxes which look as amazing as they taste.

Viji and family from Selva Food Convenience

Store have donated a generous supply of drinks and sweets.

Surplus Food Bank and their team have donated fresh milk, vegetables and fruits. With this the homeless were treated to a refreshing rose milkshake on one of the heatwave days. The Murti family have also been regularly donating muchneeded food items for the homeless in loving memory of Sudesh Murti.

The ISKCON South London team have kindly donated helpful food items and sometimes cooked for the project including many special items like puris and theplas. On Nrsimha Chaturdasi a group from the ISKCON South London temple congregation made a range of special items for the homeless such as pakoras, burfis and more.

The volunteers who regularly serve on the front line deserve ongoing praise and appreciation.

The team which is ever growing consists of the following brave warriors who have quite literally put their life on the line to enable the service to continue running; Acyuta Charan dasa, Ags

Decante, Alessandra Ponticelli, Anjali Gupta, Ashish Parmar, Ashwin Gopee, Asmaa, Bella Santousi, Bhavik Shah, Brian Clarke, Charmi Patel, Clement Mawby, Frankie Roberts, Georgina Newton, Gulia Bornoroni, Ivan Bekriev, Jade Lovely, Katerina, Krishna Pallavi, Linda Bawden, Lorane Prevost, Marguerite Jago, Milan Panth, Monica Laxman, Paul Wright, Rahul Singh, Ram Lakshman dasa, Sapna Khodiyara, Sat, Scott Warrington, Shubada Khedkar, Srikanth Chalapathy and Swati Goel.

A blessing has come in the form of an £11,000 grant which Tina Savani successfully managed to obtain from City Bridge Trust.

Though Food for Life is largely a food distribution project, the devotees who regularly serve have developed a deep sense of care and compassion for the homeless and have consequently ensured that the homeless people’s overall health and wellbeing is also taken care of. Sunny Gandhi kindly donated a second batch of hand sanitizers for the homeless in addition to 800 masks for the volunteers’ protection. Claudia Stachelhaus from Food for All arranged hygiene packs which was extremely helpful in light of the fact that many places where the homeless would previously get their sanitation needs met had been closed down due to the pandemic.

Ashish Jagjivan, Panchali Kar, Pritie Arnolda, Sabreena Tarmohamad, Sarla Ghumra and Shreya

Lakhani very kindly contributed to the collection of sleeping bags for those that had been continuously requesting one at the serving point or for those who desperately needed one to enable them to have a safe and warm place to sleep at night.

A special thank you to Linda Bawden who made numerous trips to Luton and Greenford to pick up and drop off various food donation items to the temple. She also donated items of clothing and trainers for the homeless and contributed to buying sleeping bags. Scott Warrington took time out of his busy schedule to buy specific items of clothing at the request of some of the more vulnerable homeless people. food and the issue of hunger is a huge problem particularly during these chaotic and unsettling times of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the team have not allowed any obstacles to stop them from continuing to operate and carry out their duty and service. It is quite miraculous to say the least how things have progressed and really fallen into place from the very early days of the lockdown. It seems like there has been a direct intervention of Krishna where He has used His devotees as instruments to carry out and execute His plan.