How Many People Can $100 Feed?, By Bela Shah | ServiceSpace (2024)

Another incredible Kindness Contest Story:
I am a Biogas consultant and work with people who have food waste to help convert into cooking gas. In one of the orphanages where I installed a Biogas project, I found that occasionally a van from a wedding caterer would come to drop off excess food, from the function that they catered to. The admin of the orphanage revealed to me that there is only a limit of how much the kids could eat and mostly the excess food delivery, comes after the food for the day has already been prepared. So, much of it goes into the Biogas digester. This was shocking to me. I realised that it was not sufficient to take care of rotting waste but also uncontrolled excess food production. Thus the concept of excess food distribution, as a form of charity. was formulated by my business associate and me. I appealed to Kindspring for a grant, to cover overhead costs. The grant team member was unsure if $100 would suffice for such a monumental task but I said we need to make a start somewhere and preferably small to learn first. So Kindspring processed the Kindness Grant.

The partner who I wished to work with got very busy and I was unable to do it all by myself. After a while, I found a website called nofoodwaste.in and that too by a bunch of youngsters from my city. We discussed common ideas and they were happy to be part of this joint vision. The team held a marathon in the city to conduct awareness and advertised a helpline number. Though initially they got no response, a few weeks later their first call came to collect leftover food from an event. So far the team has collected from 8 events and distributed food to more than 1500 people on the roads. So these Robin Hoods, (with owner consent) take excess food from Marriages, house warming ceremonies, parties, etc., pack the food neatly and give it to the homeless and hungry on the street. Each meal distributed costs anywhere between Rs.15-20 ($0.2 to 0.3) for transport, packing materials and labour. So $100 can actually help to feed 500 hungry people, keep food waste from landfills and bring balance to social disparities. The team that does the ground work is formed by Anish, Padmanabhan, Prakash and Keerthika while I disburse the funds and play an advisory role. Thanks again Kindspring for giving us the seed for this noble cause.