The Story of Our Seva in Bay Area California – Sep 2020
Dear Supporter,
Today we want to take the opportunity to highlight Seva being done in our Bay Area California chapter.
The focus of the Bay Area chapter is to serve the homeless community living in shelters & open encampments; residents who have been affected by natural disasters like fires; and the community impacted by COVID-19 crisis
In the month of September, we reached an important milestone of having touched more than 3400 lives with our Seva since we started in May! We touched 826 lives in September (3419 cumulative since May) by investing 229 volunteer-hours (1004 cumulative since May).
With HIS grace, we were approached by Free Meals, an agency that works with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and farmers to bring free produce and fruit to people in need. We in turn, take these boxes and distribute them to various shelters and homeless encampments. This is an ongoing initiative and we are always happy to bring these boxes to anybody who needs it.
We were approached by FEMA and the Red Cross to support the many thousands of Northern California residents that have been rendered homeless by the California wildfires. Over two weekends, with the support of 25+ volunteers, we prepared and distributed 1500 boxes of food touching the lives of almost 750 people in San Jose, Mountain View, Los Gatos and Santa Cruz areas. The planning, labor and love that went into this initiative was uplifting and inspiring.
Our work was recognized by news channels highlighting the work of our volunteers
San Jose Inside
PTC News
Religion News
In the month of September we donated items worth $6,885 ($23,337 cumulative since May). With the generous and selfless acts of donations by our donors across the Bay Area we have been able to provide critical items to many, including homeless shelters, safe houses, encampments, public housing, students, families, and police precincts.
We also would like to acknowledge generous assistance by Taffi from Real Produce Inc (in Almaden Valley, San Jose CA) for donating us fresh fruit on numerous occasions!
None of this would be possible without the support of our generous donors and volunteers. We started as a two-person team with a few volunteers, and today we are spanning the entire Bay Area with volunteers in every city of the Bay area.
Looking forward, we are planning to expand our Sewa to serve unsheltered homeless in Berkeley (in co-ordination with Berkeley Outreach Coalition) and in Gilroy.
Thank you for your support. Stay safe and well.
Meghala Divakaran, Priya Singh & Amarpreet Singh
On Behalf of the Bay Area UNITED SIKHS team
