Yuva Kendra get the Spirit of Giving

 Food— what a wonder it can be for a person to receive a delightful delicacy as it enters your mouth, yet most of us take such a privilege for granted. When I think of people who are unable to get what is considered a basic necessity of life, it truly brings tears to my eyes. This is why when this amazing year round opportunity to serve our community through our impactful Bala Vihar food drive came up, I knew we would have to try harder than any year prior to offer support and spread unconditional love and compassion to those in need of it. 

Our whole Yuva Kendra class worked tirelessly when it came to spreading word about the food drive with family & friends, collecting food donations, sorting food into different categories, and loading and unloading multiple items from various cars. We collected various cans of pasta sauce, vegetables, cereal, oats, and a variety of other non-perishable food items. 

On the final day, when we all headed over to the Heart of Downtown Food Co-op in Fullerton, we were informed of the immense impact this food drive would have on our community. We were told of the harsh circumstances and pain of the people who often come to this food bank. Some of these people only have $40 dollars to spend for a whole month, but the presence of this food bank offered them a backbone of support and gave them the hope and strength to pull on with food to support them year round. In fact, we were told that our donations should feed around 600 people for 4 to 5 months which is truly an amazing accomplishment for  our Bala Vihar. Even afterwards, we learned that our actions in this food drive have inspired other Bala Vihars to now take part in similar food drives and expand the foundation of compassion and hope that we created and grew for these people. 

In our Bala Vihar, one of the main Vedantic values that we strive to inculcate in ourselves in seva. We strive to provide for others with what we have as we seek to allow the God in all of us to flourish and prosper. This kind of seva truly brings happiness to not only those we are serving, but it also gives us a sense of contentment, happiness and fulfillment that is irreplaceable. This is just one of the many ways we strive to better both ourselves and our world at Bala Vihar and I hope that you can strive to do the same as well. Hari om!

You can see more pictures here

- Sai Sitaraman