Bengaluru: Thin and frail, 60-year-old Anthony Mary moved to the city from her small hometown near Chennai about a decade ago with hopes of a better life in the city with her husband. She wanted to work and save enough, so that they could be fairly comfortable in their old age. Unfortunately, fate had other plans. Her husband, who worked in the city as a watchman, was diagnosed with blood cancer a few years after they welcomed a second baby. She worked as a maid at that time, which added to their joint income, but now she suddenly found herself being the only bread winner of the family.
Though she lost her husband to the illness, the years of grueling work took a toll on her health. Worse was to come. Mary was diagnosed with a cervical tumour that made it extremely difficult for her to work. She had to finally quit. Her distant cousin in the city agreed to let her stay with her on the condition that she would have to manage her own meals. “I was strong then, I could work and feed myself, but now, I’ve had this surgery in my lower stomach and it makes me weak and it’s painful for me to work as a housemaid. My sons deserted me as I’m old now and have nothing more to give them and they don’t need me. I live with my cousin sister but she can’t spare any money.
“Sometimes, when I couldn’t get my hands on food,” she continues, “I would go hungry through the day and night,” she says, her eyes quivering.
Fifty-three-year-old Veronica from the slum in Lingarajapuram narrates an almost similar story. “With my husband suffering from full body paralysis, we lost our source of income. Our children aren’t interested and I can’t work because I have to take care of him. Our main concern is getting one meal a day.”
Seventy families with stories like these from the slums of Frazer Town and Lingarajpuram, who have a hard time providing a decent meal for themselves and their loved ones find their ‘manna’ at Gerard’s Kitchen in Richard’s Town.
Named after Saint Gerard of Italy, the kitchen, supported by the members of the Holy Ghost Church, has been quietly feeding these underprivileged families tirelessly each single day for over two decades. While the locals have been providing sponsorship for the meals on a daily basis so far, the number of sponsors is dwindling, says Reverend Paul P Thomas, the parish priest of the church.
“The kitchen is named after a saint who believed in giving and sharing and even though he didn’t have much, he shared. We have almost 70 families who come here for one good meal a day but times are bleak now, we are barely pulling through. We have a lot of monetary issues. When we have no sponsors, we pitch in ourselves, but the funds are getting low,” he says. “We don’t want to discontinue this effort because this is God’s work, helping people, feeding the hungry. For us, a meal is a meal, but for them, they take it to their families, share it and sometimes that is all they get. We would really like Bengalureans to come forward and reach out to the poor” he adds.
In an effort to support and continue the efforts of the Kitchen, senior members of the Holy Ghost Church are organising a walkathon, urging Bengalureans to come forward and lend a hand to this good deed. “All the money we raise will be towards providing food for these people. These people really need all the help they can get and the funds are dwindling. Each drop helps makes an ocean,” says Loveina Noronha, the co-ordinator of the group. The 5-kilometer walkathon, titled Give a Thon, will be held on the 14th of January, 2017 at 3 pm on the Seminary Grounds of the Holy Ghost Church.
