When did you last give to charity? More importantly, do you know what happened to the money you sent? And do you know who you can speak to in order to find this out?

It’s sad but true, that not all charitable organizations give you accountability of your money and donations. Therefore a donor who is convinced about a cause willingly sends in money to support the charity but loses faith when they are not responded to. In striking contrast, transparency and donor communication are the cornerstones of Akshaya Patra, and we strive hard to keep all our donors informed on our activities through the year. Not only do we send out regular online and print newsletters, but we also update our website and blog regularly to inform donors of how we are growing and spending their money.

More importnantly, our Toll Free Number is widely available to all our donors, making it easy for you to call and speak to one of our executives in order to obtain information on anything regarding Akshaya Patra. If you want to find our about our specific areas of work, how we make this school meal program available to one million children everyday, how our kitchens work at clockwork efficiency, and so on, dial us today at 1800-425-8622.

Operators are available at this number from 9:30 am to 7:00 pm and will willingly answer all your queries. Individuals wanting to volunteer or donate, as well as corporate house, interested in partnering with us for their Corporate Social Responsibility initiative are welcome to dial in. We’re waiting for a call from you!

Akshaya Patra Foundation, the largest school meal program industriously completed tenth year of its feeding the underprivileged children in government schools this year. Starting with a meager 1500 children in 5 schools of Bangalore the foundation today reaches out to 1.2 million children every day across 9 states and 19 locations.

To celebrate this occasion the foundation decided to launch a photography contest. The contest had an extremely interesting theme. Akshaya Patra wanted to cherish the smiles it could bring in millions of faces through its mid day meal program in these 10 years of its operations and hence named it as ‘click a smile’. The contest was restricted to only Indian nationals. The participants were asked to capture smiles of the children on the street, in a play ground, a school in their neighbour’s yard and send in their entries.

Registrations stated flooding in from different parts of the country. Around 260 people registered and 102 photographs qualified for the contest. A photograph of Mr. Sudipto Das has been selected as the best shot of the contest after a stringent analysis of all 102 photographs by three times Cannes award winning photographer Mr. Senthil Kumar. The next three photographs which grabbed his attention and were highly appreciated are from Ms. Priya Prakash, Mr. Prasad.S and Mr. Avi Kabir.

The winner of the contest, as announced earlier is going to be sent for an adventurous photographic trip to one of the decentralized kitchens of Akshaya Patra accompanied by a distinguished photographer Mr. Senthil and get an in-hand experience on photography.

Further the foundation also plans to hold an exhibition cum auction of the best 30 photographs, the proceeds of which will go to The Akshaya Patra Foundation for feeding more hungry children and bringing in more and more smiles.