Finding way to hearts of homeless through food

Chennai: It wasn’t just another Sunday for 117 volunteers also who assembled for a cause at 5.30 am at Vivekananda Vidyalaya in Chromepet to cook together.

These volunteers decided to volunteer with Food Bank Chennai this Sunday to celebrate World Food Day by cooking warm food for the homeless and the underprivileged in the city.

“The response before and after the cooking was tremendous,” says an excited Sneha Mohandoss, the founder of Food Bank, who has, through the group, been distributing home-cooked food for street dwellers for about two years.

For Francois Oligny-Lemieux, a resident of Canada who visited Chennai to take part in this drive, the experience was a heart warming one. “I was first impressed by the amount of food prepared. I had never seen such amount of food being cooked.

We packed way more meals than I had imagined. I was impressed by the organisation, it was clear they were experienced in such food drives,” he told Deccan Chronicle. “It was emotional to see the blind people living at the railway stations. I am glad the Food Bank team give them attention and food on a regular basis.”

Starting early morning, batches of food consisting of variety rice was prepared and packed in batches along with biscuits and buttermilk by 11.30 am to be taken for distribution by lunchtime.

Several volunteers had donated items like raw rice, lentils, and biscuits and some of them sent these across from overseas.

Today’s food distribution was carried out in the whole of Chennai, in areas like Chromepet, Tambaram, Porur, Washermanpet, Sowcarpet, and Chennai Central, Sneha added.

“We had set a target for cooking 100kg of food. But with the donations, we were able to cook 50 kgs extra. We had aimed to finish distributing by 2 pm so people could eat this food for lunch. After distributing among the homeless, the remaining food was distributed to people living in slums,” added Sneha.

By lunchtime on Sunday, the volunteers for this non-profit group had distributed 2,000 packets making it a happier day for many of the homeless.