We all are unique beings and have a unique story to tell from different walks of life.

Some may share high spirited stories while others may talk about the troughs of their lives. Some fortunate people have so much in their lives that they can afford to share with the have-nots of the society.

Did you know? Daan Utsav was initially called the Joy of Giving week

People who want to be a part of this festival of philanthropic act, will perform little acts of giving to ensure that needy people get all the help and support they require. The Akshaya Patra Foundation is an NGO in India that has always been acknowledged for their feeding service. This NGO is registered as a not-for-profit organisation under the Indian Trusts Act, 1882. It also has the distinction of being the world’s largest NGO run school lunch programme, serving freshly cooked nutritious mid-day meals to school children every single day.

During the onset of the pandemic, Akshaya Patra changed its focus from feeding children to feeding every person in need. With various programmes, marginalised sections of the society comprising of carpenters, construction-site workers, daily-wage labourers, auto rickshaw drivers, ambulance drivers, grave diggers, aged people, orphans, patient caretakers, traffic police, etc. were benefitted.

Impact of donating to Akshaya Patra
With Akshaya Patra, you can not only feed the hungry, but you can serve mid-day meals to children going to Government and Government-aided schools. 92% of the funds collected for the programme will reach the beneficiaries and the rest of it will be used for the programme cost. Create an impact with Akshaya Patra by donating towards:

Cooked meals – Freshly cooked meals are served to every person who suffers without the basic necessities like full-plate of meals. With your contribution, every beneficiary receives either dal and rice, or khichadi/roti and subzi.

Happiness Kits – Provide Happiness Kits to children who are bereaved of mid-day meals due to school closures in the pandemic. These kits ensure nutrition, health, hygiene and education of school children who used to otherwise go to government and government-aided schools.

Family Happiness Kits – Support the sustenance of marginalised families who find it difficult to provide even a single square meal a day. Your online donations will provide such vulnerable people with food items that they can cook at home according to their capacity.

Raksha Kits – Akshaya Patra conducts incentivised vaccination drives to reduce vaccine hesitancy in people from vulnerable sections of society. People who attend this drive get educated about the vaccine, receive a grocery kit as an incentive to make up for their daily or hourly wage loss.

Shakti Kits – Malnourished pregnant women need extra care and nourishment to ensure that they have a safe delivery and a healthy baby. These kits provide nutritional supplements like iron, proteins, etc.

With over 1.8 million children and millions of vulnerable people benefitting from Akshaya Patra’s feeding programmes, you can feed the hungry and be a part of the initiatives this Daan Utsav. Help the have-not’s narrate high-spirited stories of your gooodwill.

In emergencies that loomed our country, a pandemic of such a large scale had called upon emergency lockdowns, not once or twice, but many times with the hope that the number of active cases will decrease. The most celebrated and occasion that was looked forward to in 2020 was Independence Day. This day also saw a few limitations on the celebration front. Guidelines were given out to follow preventive measures while organising various programmes for this day. For the first time, military bands from the Indian tri-services performed to thank the COVID-19 frontline workers as a gesture of appreciation and gratitude.

This year we will be celebrating the 75th year of Indian Independence Day. And this time too we will be restricted with our celebrations though the vaccines have been rolled out. Though the virus hasn’t dampened our spirit of festivity, we have accepted the new norms to celebrate the patriotism in us. Giving or helping people in need, has become a part of our lives. We are helping each other in ways that we wouldn’t even have thought of. Akshaya Patra has gone beyond its normal routine of feeding children from challenging socio-economic backgrounds who study in Government and Government-aided schools.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Akshaya Patra Foundation has moved beyond serving mid-day meal beneficiaries; it started the COVID-19 relief feeding service to feed the needy populations of India. As a part of this programme, cooked meals and grocery kits were distributed to marginalised communities of India.

As children were kept out of school and they did not have access to their daily source of nutritious meals – mid-day meals, they had started becoming visibly weaker. To continue serving these school children, this Indian NGO started the Happiness Kits Programme. With this initiative, the health, immunity, hygiene and education of children would be supported.

As the second wave of the pandemic hit the nation with full force, the hunger crisis also worsened. Akshaya Patra also decided to fight back hunger for the sake of people’s survival. It started distributing Family Happiness Kits to vulnerable families of four, to help them survive with healthy food for 15 days.

What’s inside the Family Happiness Kit?

Several people from different sections of society had started facing food shortages. Akshaya Patra decided to lend them a helping hand. Thus, it provided food assistance to Homeless mothers who were living without their husbands and artisan communities who had taken a bad hit in this testing time.

This Independence Day is not very different from what it was last year. The only difference maybe is that last year it was the pandemic that devastated the lives of the needy and this year it is a year of survival with the second wave.
Make this Independence Day, a special one in your life. 75 years ago, it was a struggle for freedom while today is a struggle for life. Donate online to Akshaya Patra to relieve the marginalised and vulnerable populations from this struggle for food.

Celebrate humanity, celebrate togetherness