Handful Of Grains.
3 min read
“If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one,” said Mother Teresa to encourage each individual to make even the most minuscule wave of contribution. With more than 3.3 million children in India, let alone families, struggling to put even one grain of food in their mouths every day, malnutrition and hunger are at their pinnacle in one of the world’s fastest developing countries.
The question arises, “Why is the condition such?” It is because of the ever-widening income and social disparities amongst the status of households in our nation, the rich are getting richer and the poor can’t help getting poorer.
Only to make things worse, India was stuck amid the infamous COVID-19 pandemic. This led to even the last bits of nutrition being snatched away from thousands, a majority of which are based in the villages of Maharashtra and that’s where we came in.
The Rotaract Club of Narsee Monjee College, a youth organization affiliated with Rotary International, working under the guidance of Rotaract District 3141, Mumbai, and The Rotary Club of Bombay West is an institution-based club of SVKM’s Narsee Monjee College of Commerce and Economics began its legacy project “Handful of Grains” back in 2013 with the ultimate and sole aim of helping out those struggling to put food on their table.
This has been made possible ever since, by collecting food grains and other essentials with the help of volunteers, from all around the city, to distribute to the underprivileged. Rather than limiting our focus to the rural areas near Mumbai this year, we also conducted a part of the project in the semi-urban area of the city, considering how it had been a vast section of the society that was struck because of the pandemic. Therefore, with the aim to only better ourselves each year, this year, instead of one village, three villages became a part of our legacy project along with a location in Borivali West.
After successful completion of our project this year, we feel proud to announce that we were able to help out 123 families, along with 175 children residing in the Bhagat Pada, Kukade, and Makadchola (villages in Palghar district). On December 12th, 2021, our team visited these villages with ration and stationery kits prepared for all the families and children. Each ration kit included 2kg rice, 5kg wheat flour, 1kg salt, 1kg sugar, 1kg dal, 100 grams of tea, 1-liter oil, 5kg potatoes, 2kg onion, and 2 bars of soap. Our trusted sponsor also provided Vitamin-C tablets as an addition to the ration kits.
To encourage and show our support to all the school-going children to study harder and help curate the finest future for our nation, we distributed a few stationery materials to the- 2 pens, 2 pencils, 1 sharpener, 1 eraser, a ruler, and a long notebook. As a final warm gesture, our team distributed some chocolates to all the children of the three villages and their smiles told us that it was all worth it.
We also conducted another distribution drive on December 24th, 2021, where we distributed 100 ration kits to the people belonging to the semi-urban areas like the maids, housekeepers, etc at Borivali West.
RCNM concluded its legacy project with wonderful memories and efforts. Enfin, we were able to distribute more than 4000 kgs of grains and were able to raise a total of ₹67,000, establishing itself in the history of Handful of Grains. Gandhi Ji once said, “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” Always remember that while you are eating too much, there are people starving out there.
