Breakfast Seva in Berkeley California
August 2018
Breakfast consisting of Oatmeal and Blueberry Scones was served to 20-30 homeless youth between 6:30 AM and 8:15 AM at a Youth Shelter in Berkeley, California.
The City of Berkeley is very famous and known for the prestigious UC Berkeley in the State of California. On the flip side, a lot of homeless individuals who are either travelling from Oakland city or residents of Berkeley city who chose to step away from their areas in search of achieving their dreams, call this City home.
With the command of Bhagawan, the Sai youth have been carrying out Breakfast Seva at this overnight youth shelter called “YEAH - Youth Engagement, Advocacy and Housing”, for quite some time now. This shelter has been a part of the Lutheran Church and the hall has been donated to this shelter to carry out the services that are much needed for the youth.
As the name suggests this shelter houses the youth for 12 hours overnight, from 8:00 pm to 8:00 am, where they are provided a hot dinner and breakfast. They can accommodate about 25-30 youth every night. The youth are supposed to leave the shelter after having breakfast in the morning and mostly, they spend their time hanging around in libraries, parks or streets unless they are enrolled into an employment training or continuing their education or working part time somewhere.
The Sai youth reached out to YEAH shelter as part of the Sai Ashraya Initiative where they serve breakfast and interact with teens who stay there. Although breakfast is much-needed for the teens, the main focus has been to interact with them to understand more about them and thereby building trust. The initiative of providing breakfast has been much appreciated and loved by the teens staying there.
Sai Youth in the YEAH shelters Kitchen
Sai Youth Breakfast Team at the YEAH Shelter
Recently the volunteers heard a story of an 18-year old girl who resides at YEAH shelter and works as a cleaner at City Hall. She was sharing her struggles of not having a full time opportunity. Stories like this have motivated the Sai youth to visit the shelter every weekend. They have also started partnering with employment training programs in Berkeley / Oakland cities to see if they can place teens from shelters.
The joy and satisfaction of helping a fellow youth reach stability is indescribable!!!!!