Hare Krishna Prabhus, Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada! With the support of many devotees, community members and friends, ISKCON of Gainesville, FL has been able to continue prasadam distribution during this COVID-19 pandemic in novel and unique ways. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have been delivering about 100 prasadam lunches to Hospital workers under the Krishna Lunch for Healthcare Heroes program. Recently, we started the Krishna CARES program under which we deliver meals to residents of impoverished neighborhoods, especially to the old and vulnerable population. We have been doing around 15 lunches under the Krishan CARES program. The meals are sponsored not only by devotees but because of the news article people from all different backgrounds are sponsoring meals. We started the Healthcare program by simply showing up to ERs with few lunches and building contacts. As far as Krishna CARES, we reached out to non-profits and agencies, and also went on a door-to-door campaign in the low income neighborhoods to sign up people for the Krishna CARES lunch program. We have cultivated some very sweet relationships by providing prasad to people who never had it before in their lives! Our prasadam distribution efforts were featured on the front page article of one of Gainesville's main newspapers: https://www.gainesville.com/news/20200605/krishna-lunch-staple-at-uf-reaches-beyond-campus These efforts have not only given us much fulfillment but have also immensely pleased our larger Gainesville community. We even got a shout out on social media by the Vice-Mayor and he ended up sponsoring 5 lunches as well. Distributing Krishna Prasadam is transcendental and at the same time it has helped build strong relationships with the local community and made lots of friends. I hope this serves as an encouragement and support to you. If you would like to start a similar program and have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me at srutidas108@gmail.com or (801) 615 1621.
Your servant,
Srutisagara das |
