With the inspiration of VT Seva founder HH Sri Chinna Jeeyar Swamiji's call to serve the underprivileged, VT Seva has successfully organized its annual holiday food drive at various locations in the United States.
VT Seva young volunteers motivated their local communities to participate in the food drive and everything that was collected was delivered to the local shelter homes and food pantries/banks.
We are very proud of the VT Seva volunteers and the local communities who contributed both their time and resources to make this noble cause a successful event.
The goal was to raise about 1000 pounds of food. Because of active participation from the VT Seva volunteers, we raised more than 2000 pounds.
Here are news reports from various chapters about the event -
New England area
Within just two weeks, we motivated local communities to donate food at various Massachusetts and New Hampshire locations.
On 11/6/2010, we have donated all the collected boxed & canned food items to
Nashua Soup kitchen and shelter.
It was well appreciated by the local food bank.
As it was a Saturday morning most of the youngsters could not come to the delivery location but they were actively involved in promoting the food drive in their neighborhood and at their schools.
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Bay Area
VT Seva Bay Area donated 500 lbs of food items to the
Family Shelter, San Jose.
We contacted the SJ family shelter for their wish list and they expressed that they would love to receive the baking goods.
We donated flour, butter, baking powder,sugar, oats, oil,beans, candies, fruit juices, aluminum foil, crushed pepper etc.
The shelter home appreciated the donations and thanked VT Seva for the generous contribution.
Houston
We have been able to raise over 100 pounds of food items for this year’s Food Drive.With only two weeks to donate items, we are very proud of the Houston Community who contributed both the time and the resources to make this noble cause a successful event.
The food was donated to the
Star of Hope Transitional Living Center for Women and Families, Houston where it was greatly appreciated.
We hope to make next year’s event even bigger and stronger than before!
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Dallas Fort Worth
We have successfully completed our 2nd holiday food drive in the Dallas area.
Though it was on a short notice, we were still able to collect sizable amount of food donations at various locations in the Dallas Fort Worth area.
Youngsters were actively involved in promoting the food drive in their neighborhoods and were ably supported by their parents with good encouragement.
The collected items were delivered to
Safe Haven Homeless Shelter in Dallas Downtown. We donated food to the same shelter
last year.
As it was a busy sports weekend for most of the youngsters, all of them could not make it to the Homeless Shelter in person for the delivery.
We sincerely hope to continue the tradition of annual food drive and would like to thank all the enthusiastic youngsters, Prajna students and JetDFW volunteers for their strong support and active involvement.
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New Jersey
VT Seva NJ Branch donated over 600 lbs of food items and hygiene products to the
Skeet’s Pantry - First Presbyterian Church, Cranbury, NJ 08512.
Upon the food pantry organizer's request we collected and donated the following items:
Canned/Boxed Soup
Canned vegetables, fruits and fruit juices
Breakfast Cereals
Rice and Pasta
Laundry Detergent
Tooth Paste
Hand Soap
The Pantry appreciated the generous donation from VT Seva.
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Washington DC
As part of Food drive organized by the VT Seva, DC Branch collected about 89 cans (100 pounds) brought in by 83 youth and donated to
Capital Area Food Bank.
DC Branch scheduled a pickup at the weekly meeting location (Floris Elementary School - 2708 Centreville Road Herndon, VA; 9-11am).
Capital Area Food Bank is the largest in Washington DC metropolitan area founded in 1980 on Martin Luther King Jr's birthday as a nonprofit hunger and nutrition education resource.
This Food Bank has been in operation for 30 years and distributes well over 24 million pounds of food to approximately 700 partner agencies.
DC Branch discussed with their outreach coordinator to register VT Seva (DC Branch) as one of their food bank member agency to conduct this event annually during the first week of November.