While the world economy has tumbled with the ongoing pandemic, billions are struggling to meet their ends. Yet poverty has been growing far before the virus crept in. There is a handful of the fortunate who care to lend a hand.
Sana Arora is one such fortunate soul who is doing everything possible to end hunger, one meal at a time.
The Trigger
Originally from Chandigarh, Sana moved to Mumbai in 2012 for her job. She wasn’t just twinkled by the shine of the city of dreams. Her eyes also met the pensive look of the less fortunate starving in the streets of Mumbai, a city known for the largest slum.
Sana’s daily drives to her office in the city of dreams were a reality check. She stood audience to children who would beg for alms, or point towards their stomach asking for food on the streets. Those hunger-stricken children reminded her of all those times when there was leftover food wasted.
Being a compassionate soul, this whole experience gave Sana a purpose. A purpose to end hunger in any way she could.
The Action
To eradicate hunger, her journey started with baby steps.
Sana started collecting extra or leftover food from her home and handed it over to homeless families. However, very soon she realized that her help was falling short. So she reached out to her neighbors for food donations.
Soon, Sana’s good act gathered huge support with suggestions of a bigger drive of providing freshly cooked meals. Yet the idea was left out after she connected with the recipients to realize that their definition of meals was very different and that their level of food insecurity was high. Thus she started to provide them with ration instead of cooked food.
The Feed’em Movement
One thing led to the other. In 2017, Sana founded The Feed’em Movement, which officially recognized her purpose and cause. In order to achieve her goal, she started crowdfunding by reaching out to her networks, spreading the word through social media, and joining several community service societies.
The Feed’em Movement is a registered trust and an organized model that they follow to serve the underprivileged with ration packs of pulses, rice, flour, oil, and salt among others.
They have adopted communities like homeless families, shelter homes, night schools, etc where they have introduced a special Attendance Reward Programme to increase attendance by giving out ration kits to the child with the highest attendance.
Besides this, they also reach out to the slums wherein they distribute rations to the old, the disabled, and the widows above 60s who can’t fend for themselves.
By now, Sana and her team have successfully carried out more than 100 drives, and served over 1 Lakh meals in the last 3 years! Moreover, they have been working incessantly in these corona times. They aim to serve at least 1 lakh meals in 2020!
To bring about a change, all we need is a little intent. It’s young and dynamic people like Sana who is successfully debunking the myth that social work and charity are for the old or when you hit the post-retirement phase. Sana urges the young and old alike to not only figure out how to donate but to adopt food insecure communities and participate in community service as well.
Do you want to be part of the greater good or do something similar in your area? You can showcase your own initiative on Giving Circle today!
What is Giving Circle
Giving Circle is for all those who want to bring the CHANGE by either leading or volunteering in the making of it. The online community service platform supports the social drives of Citizens and NGOs. Time, Money, and Material are the only resources needed and we support in crowdsourcing all of them for our social warriors.