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Seva to Alleviate Hunger in Houston, Texas
On February 1, 2020, the Houston youth assembled for their monthly offering of Seva – feeding their fellow embodiments of love, living in the downtrodden areas of the city. Over the past few months, additional youth from outside the Sai fold have been participating in the Seva with much enthusiasm, given the noble work that is being done. The group of seven youth prepared 108 lunch bags – each consisting of mayo-pickle-tofurkey (vegetarian tofu) sandwiches, crackers and a juice pack. For this month’s Seva, the youth tried a new approach for the preparation of the sandwiches. They collected leftover, fresh bread from a factory in the city which allowed them to save the food from being wasted, thereby fulfilling another one of Swami’s directives of never wasting food.
The lunch bags were packed for transport and the group chanted nine Aumkars and Gayatris invoking Swami to bless the Seva and the beautiful souls who would be receiving the lunch bags. The youth headed out to their previously identified prime location where a lot of the homeless people would gather, but were surprised to find very few people there on that day. Leaving everything to Swami, the youth began thinking of alternative locations for distribution of the lunch bags. One of the youth came up with the idea of checking with the local homeless shelters, if they would like to accept the lunch bags for their residents. The first shelter to be called on the list, immediately responded that they were in need of food for lunch and they would gladly accept the lunch bags. As the youth arrived there, they were met with wonderful smiles brimming with gratitude and love from the residents as they received the lunch bags. And hence another Seva activity came to a close with the youth expressing their gratitude to Swami for this opportunity to serve. Having received an ambitious goal from Swami to expand their efforts to tackle the problem of hunger in their communities, the youth will continue to strive to contribute in their own little way, to His grand, Divine Mission!