Ugadi, often referred to as Yugadi, marks the beginning of a new year as per the Hindu lunisolar calendar. It is primarily celebrated in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana. Ugadi symbolises a fresh start and spreads happiness among people.

Preparations begin a week in advance. People buy new clothes and clean their homes. On the day of the festival, mango leaves are used to decorate the entrance of the home and water mixed with cow dung is sprinkled around the home. People start their day with an oil bath and prayers. Also, family members get together and relish a wide variety of special delicacies such as the Puran Poli/Holige/Obbattu and Ugadi Pachadi.

Ugadi holds a special place in people’s hearts as they look forward to ushering in the new year with happiness and prosperity. You can make it more special with your kindness and brighten the lives of those in need. You can share happiness by donating for a cause and begin this new year on a note of goodwill.

You can donate to The Akshaya Patra Foundation and strengthen our efforts to support children’s education and nutrition.

Why Akshaya Patra?
To meet the nutritional needs of underprivileged children, Akshaya Patra has been serving them wholesome mid-day meals in its capacity as the implementing partner of the Government’s PM Poshan Abhiyaan (previously known as the Mid-Day Meal Programme). These meals act as an incentive for children to come to school every day and focus on their academics and co-curricular activities.

Currently, we feed 2 million children every school day in 15 states and 2 union territories across India, thereby ensuring they have an access to ‘unlimited food for education’. With steadfast support from our kind donors, we aim to address classroom hunger.

This Ugadi, your generosity can brighten the lives of these children. Be a change-maker by serving wholesome meals with Akshaya Patra.

Celebrate the festive day by supporting children’s nutrition, education and dreams. Donate to Akshaya Patra and ensure that every child is well-fed and educated.

Avail 50% tax exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act on every donation you make.

What is volunteering?
Volunteering is an unpaid service often made to an NGO to benefit different sections or communities.

Why do people volunteer?
Volunteering boosts physical and mental health of the volunteer as well as the beneficiaries with their services. A rise in the volunteerism culture in the past few decades makes it evident.

Furthermore, organisations prefer hiring those who have significant volunteering experience as it demonstrates:
• One’s ability to work in a team
• One’s passion to help the society
• Leadership skills
• Time management skills
• Accountability
• Integrity and ethical behaviour

Additionally, it brings a sense of purpose and boosts confidence in volunteers.

Volunteer with The Akshaya Patra Foundation

We at Akshaya Patra are an internationally recognised NGO, nourishing millions of Government school children with mid-day meals under the Government scheme of PM POSHAN Abhiyaan. Our vision is to ensure that “no child is deprived of education because of hunger” and our mission is to feed “3 million children by 2025”.

You can volunteer with us both online and offline.

Offline volunteering opportunities

Introduce us to your organisation
Help us reach your connections and motivate them to donate to our various programmes for people coming from challenging socioeconomic communities.

Raise funds for a cause of your choice
You can conduct fundraising events to donate for children from low socioeconomic backgrounds; they may be wedding ceremonies, birthday parties and similar gatherings.

Take us along with you
Take us along to the places you visit and introduce us to the people you meet. You can help us reach more people by:

• sharing presentations about our initiatives while addressing a gathering.
• distributing print-outs of information about volunteering opportunities with our NGO in your apartment, office, neighbouring localities and at special events.

Be our consultant
You can offer your services as a consultant for the various departments of our NGO depending on your skills and our requirement. You can guide us on Operations, Marketing, HR, Finance, Logistics, Online presence, Health and Nutrition, Fundraising and others.

Trainers and physicians can conduct workshops or check-ups for our employees.

Visit our beneficiary schools to support the midday meal scheme
If you wish to support the midday meal scheme, we can arrange your visit to one of our beneficiary schools near your area as per your interest and availability. You can spend some memorable moments with the children, serve meals and talk to them about the importance of health and nutrition. You can also taste the mid-day meals during your visit and provide valuable feedback.

You can share some of your skills and talents with the children which will help them in their learning journey—it may be related to sports, fine arts, magic tricks, mental math, science experiments or anything of interest to them.

Help in kitchen operations at our premises
As a part of your CSR activity, volunteer in our kitchen processes such as cleaning and cutting vegetables, cleaning the distribution vehicles and other similar activities depending upon your interest. It will give you a first-hand experience of how our kitchens operate and what goes behind preparing hygienic meals for over 2 million children every day.

Online Volunteering Opportunities

Sometimes our busy schedules prevent us from helping people in need. So, we have a solution!

Cyber Advocate with Akshaya Patra
You can sign in as a Cyber Advocate for The Akshaya Patra Foundation. This opportunity entails:

• Forwarding mailers to your contacts to help spread the word about our work
• Promoting our programmes from your social networking accounts and asking your connections to follow us
• Introducing Akshaya Patra in your online communities
• Using our screensavers, buttons, posters, wallpapers, banners and more

Guest-blogging opportunity for volunteers
If you like to write, you can blog about us and let people know about the cause you like to support. You can also send your articles to us and we will then publish them as our guest blog.

Online fundraising volunteer opportunities
We feed 2 million children every day across 14 states and 2 union territories of India from 65 state-of-the-art kitchens. We plan to expand our operations to more locations for which people across the globe are helping us raise funds in their own ways.

If you also wish to donate for children, you can register yourself as an online fundraising volunteer. All the funds raised will go to providing meals to underprivileged beneficiaries. Dedicated fundraisers are acknowledged for their efforts on our select collaterals.

Social media volunteering opportunities
You can become a social media volunteer on the social media site you visit frequently.

When all of us spend some time on social media platforms, why not support a noble cause through them?

Here’s what you can do:
• Become our fan on Facebook. Like our posts and share them with your friends
• Tweet and re-tweet about us on Twitter
• Share our YouTube videos
• Add us to your circle on Google Plus

Contribute to our NGO in your own way!

It is your call to be active in any or all of these activities to help the underprivileged and fill your life with goodness. We will appreciate your efforts on our Facebook page.

We also welcome suggestions!
If you believe there are other effective ways to support us that are in line with our objective, we would love to hear from you.

You can download the volunteering form and send it to ho.hr@akshayapatra.org
Now pull up your sleeves and get ready to fulfil dreams!