Run for fun… and a cause!

On 31st May 2009, the small team of 35 people from Akshaya Patra, was charged with excitement. We were geared for the Majja Run at the Sunfeast World 10K Marathon, being held in Bangalore. Having collected at the Kanteerva Stadium, we were all set for the 5.6 Km run (or brisk walk!) that we were doing to garner support for our cause – unlimited food for education!

With the firing of the gun, our team started running, banner in hand and a smile on our faces. The thrill of running to create awareness for Akshaya Patra was tremendous and we were happy to be speaking about our work and program, to the media and interested individuals. Just like us, various charities had turned up to do their bit and people from all walks of life were running in the spirit of participation.

From the group of 35, 32 of us kept up to our promise to our donors – of running the entire 5.6 Km of the Majja Run; the remaining 3 - Ramaswamy, Williams, and Ravi, did even better – they ran the full 10 Km distance! A big ‘thank you’ to all the people who helped us generate funds from this initiative.

Since the past few years marathons have become a regular activity across the metros in India and each city hosts 2-3 marathons, half-marathons or night-marathons in a year. This is a wonderful opportunity for NGOs like us to tell the people about the work we do and inspire people to come forward to make a collective difference to society. While this time round, we put up a small effort, we would like to magnify this in the forthcoming marathons. We request those of you who would like to run the marathon in your city for Akshaya Patra, to mail us today! Our team of fundraisers will work closely with you to ensure that you are able to make your run more meaningful by asking people to pledge their support for your run. As you run for fun, make it an event to remember – not just for yourself, but for the 1 million children who benefit from your run, when you support for Akshaya Patra!

More for Mysore

It just seems like yesterday, when we began operations in Mysore! Feeding 8,700 children, the first food vans from our Mysore kitchen drove out to 32 schools in January 2005. What a sense of achievement it was – we had covered Mysore and its neighboring areas. Many corporate houses and individuals had come forth and extended support to The Akshaya Patra Foundation (TAPF), in order to meet with this goal.

Today, with the inauguration of another kitchen in Mysore, there is a tremendous sense of déjà vu! Having pushed numbers to 20,000 from our existing kitchen, we have started yet another kitchen in Mysore… once again, it’s celebration time, as the foundation increases its reach to underprivileged children in and around Mysore. And once again, corporates and individuals have extended support generously to make this happen.

The state-of-the-art facility in Mysore leverages innovation and technology to cater to one lakh children. This has given our program an impetus and we have plans of pushing our reach to 30,000 children in the next couple of months. Of course, as some of you know, our program is already operational in 7 states and 17 locations, now feeding free, unlimited schools meals to over 1 million children everyday.

TAPF thanks Shri B.S. Yeddyurappa, Chief Minister of Karnataka, for inaugurating the new kitchen and appreciating our program. Immediately after the inauguration, the Chief Minister and his cabinet colleagues also served meals to the school children, giving a fillip to our plans of more for Mysore!

A million today, five tomorrow!

A million… is the number of stars Anita thinks the sky has.
A million… is the amount of money Muthu hopes to make when he grows up.
A million… is also the number of children like Anita and Muthu, who Akshaya Patra feeds everyday!

Our organization has been named after the divine vessel ‘Akshaya Patra’ of Mahabharata, symbolizing unlimited portions to feed countless mouths. While this is taken for granted in historical epics, it is no small feat in this day and age! So today, as we cross the one million mark, we’d like to pay a tribute to all the people who have helped us accomplish this milestone.

Yes, it takes a constant supply of funds to feed one million, but it also takes a few loving, willing human hearts, minds, and hands to feed this number everyday. Inspired and dedicated cooks, cleaners, drivers, guards, supervisors, managers, donors, government authorities, advisors, board members, and missionaries collectively make this possible. We work three shifts a day, cooking, supervising, and delivering hot, nutritious school meals everyday towards our collective dream.

When we began we didn’t have the slightest idea that we’d reach this scale. But our people never miss a schedule at the schools we serve, or an opportunity to grow the program further! All this has been possible only through the unstinted support of our individual and corporate donors, who opened new paths for us, taking us to new heights by fanning our spirits. Bit by bit, we have increased the program scale, feeding more children every month, year after year.

Today, we have reached the target that we had actually hoped to reach by the year 2010. In celebration of this, we are determined to reach out to even more children and transform many more lives – 5 million by 2020. All we ask is that you be a part of this dream too. Take that step today!

Social media that empowers you to make a change

May has been a busy month for the entire nation! The country has just finished it’s Lok Sabha elections and demonstrated the power of change – the power of voting as one.

This year’s elections also demonstrated the power that the youth of India have – that of influencing change through social media. Net savvy leaders used blogs to communicate with the public. Specially designed websites urged people to exercise their right to vote. Communities and pages dedicated to the elections came up on social networking sites and status messages suddenly read, “Go vote!” all over. The people of India actually took notice and came forth and voted.

The voluntary sector too has woken up to this media. In today’s wired world, it doesn’t take anything for you to be a part of this revolution too. There is a lot you can do for an organization like Akshaya Patra, from your own home. Experience the real potential of your social media presence – help us create awareness and fundraise to provide free, nutritious, school meals to underprivileged children to as many children as possible. Here’s how you can make a start by spending just a few minutes:

• Join the Akshay Patra community on your social networking site and encourage your friends to join, volunteer, and donate. If you don’t find a group or a page for our organization, write to us today!


• Start your own community educating people on the concept of free school meals for children and ask all your friends to visit our website.


• Change your status message for a day – ask people to participate in change through Akshaya Patra!


• If you blog, connect our blog to your own!


• Include Akshaya Patra in your signature and tagline with every out-going email message. It demonstrates your concern for the community and that you have taken a step for social change.


• Come visit our kitchen and see our work and write to your friends and family about it.


• Talk to your Corporate Social Responsibility team at work about our cause. Bring them over to visit us and see our work, or ask for a meeting where our representative can educate them on Akshaya Patra.

Let’s start at the very beginning…

Think children and you’ll certainly think stories… because, every child loves a good story. Today, we’d like to share with you the story of Akshaya Patra’s birth and how our cause of feeding children through a midday-meal program has materialized into a collective dream.

Sunday feasts, bhajans and prasad distribution have always been the highlight of the weekend program at ISKCON centers worldwide. This was a tradition that was started by ISKCON’s founder, Swami Srila Prabhupada and all centers worldwide follow it joyously; devotees and people throng to the temples to enjoy the weekend programs.

In the year 2000, a few years after the ISKCON temple in Bangalore was started, the founder Sri Madhu Pandita Dasa, had a dream – to take Swami Srila Prabhupada’s concept of the prasad distribution to as many people as possible. Thus was born The Akshaya Patra Foundation – an Indian NGO, and a secular voluntary organization that would go on to support school-meals for underprivileged children, not just on Sundays, but through the year!

Feeding school children was important to us as we firmly believe that a child who comes to school for free food, leaves with an education. ‘Unlimited food for education’ not only ensures good performance of the child at school, but also impacts the families of the children who grow up to be equal citizens.

And so, food distribution was started for 1500 children of the neighboring schools. At all times the emphasis was on hot, nutritious food for school-going children. The intent was to serve the children food that was fit for the Gods! Soon a centralized kitchen was set up with technology for super-steam heating of the food, to ensure maximum taste and nutrition. And before we knew it, word had spread and Akshaya Patra was receiving applications to feed over a lakh children everyday!

When the supreme court of India passed a Public Interest Litigation making midday meals compulsory for primary schools, we started working with the governments of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to support government schools where admission was granted on a secular basis. And, there has been no looking back after that!

Today, Akshaya Patra has grown leaps and bounds, operating in 14 locations in India and we have crossed our mission of feeding a million children everyday. Support from donors and corporate organizations has gone a long way in helping us achieve this. The dream is being realized slowly but surely… and it won’t be long before we take large steps towards achieving our vision – “No child in India shall lose out on education because of hunger.” You can help us make this possible by making a donation today… click here to learn how!

Come rain or shine, we work away!

Feeding over a lakh children a day, 2 times a day and 365 days a year, is the first Akshaya Patra centralized kitchen. But come summer time and the kitchen activity slows down… have you ever wondered what happens to our kitchens when the schools close for the summers?

Well, here’s what happens…

Sure, our kitchens feed underprivileged school children through our midday meal program. But something that you probably didn’t know, is that Akshaya Patra, the world’s largest NGO-run school meal program, also feeds senior citizens, government run aanganwadis (pre nursery schools) and prisons! So come rain or shine, school or no school, our kitchens work non-stop at supplying hot, nutritious meals to prisons and senior citizens in community halls, twice a day!

But every summer, as we decrease our capacity by 80 percent, we also work at improving the technology and capacity of our kitchens. The months of April and May each year, are utilized for yearly maintenance activities, helping us renovate our equipment, upgrade gadgets and grinders, service kitchen appliances, and make suitable modifications for expansion. Our kitchen also gets the annual face-lift through white-washing and thorough cleaning.

This year, as we increase this kicthen’s feeding capacity by 10,000, we are hoping to increase the capacity of our vessels from 300 litres to 500 litres, enabling us to cook more rice at one go. With the increase in numbers, our distribution team is also looking to add two new vehicles to their fleet of feeding vans. We welcome donations and financial support from all our patrons towards meeting these needs. To make a difference to our program, click here today! Or please ask to visit personally, to see how you can enhance our kitchen operations.

Give your today, we will give you an enriched tomorrow

Hunger affects nearly one billion people and malnutrition claims the lives of millions of people each year around the world. Children are most often the victims of malnutrition and hunger. It does not make headlines like in a famine or floods but takes its toll on the overall development of our future generation.

But, do we ever think about those underprivileged children who are suffering from hunger? How can we put an end on this hardship?

Education is the best and the only way to remove hunger and malnutrition.

Money has been spend at education, to buy benches, black board, to paint classrooms, even to put up fences around the campus to keep children from running away. But who thought about the food they ate?

But there was one organization that understood that with a hungry stomach no child could concentrate on studies.

The Akshaya Patra Foundation makes a difference in the lives of underprivileged children and their families by evolving a free school meal program in government schools.

We assure that children attend and remain in school to improve overall development, and thereby contribute to more self-reliant, productive societies. We give utmost importance to support children to continue their education.