Food, one of our basic needs plays a major role in our life. We cannot live without food. The very thought of a variety of dishes, their taste, colour and smell make us happy. Many people around us can’t make both ends meet. They have to fight poverty. Here is a piece of happy news for them. There are people out there who care for them and try to find a solution. As Gandhiji observes ‘There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.’ Likewise, in the Palakkad district of Kerala, a group of people under Win Borne Public Trust started a food centre ‘Win Borne Life Care Foods’, near the town hall, Kotta ground on the twenty-fifth of June this year.
It is the first hotel in Kerala which gives free food thrice a day. The menu includes upma or idli for breakfast, vegetarian meals for lunch and upma, idli or chapati for dinner. Six women staff are working in the cooking section. Twenty people can be seated at a time. The hotel opens at seven thirty in the morning and closes at nine except on Sundays. They don’t open on Sundays.
A charity box is placed at the entrance of this hotel. It is not necessary to donate. Those who are willing can put as per their wish. The sight of some people praying near it is a remark on the value of food. Most of us waste food, but there are a lot of people who don’t have the income to find their daily food. ‘The happiness in the face of those people is our satisfaction’ says a member of the trust. They have to meet expenses such as shop rent, salary for their staff, the rising rate of vegetables and groceries and so on. As this venture got media attention, help from different corners came in the form of money to the donation box, vegetables and groceries free of cost and sometimes at wholesale rate.
They planned this venture initially in 2018 but started only in 2022. They are planning these types of shops in every district of Kerala. Seeing people on roadsides struggling for even a day’s meal made them take such initiative.
People are mostly greedy and unable to satisfy most of their desires. But in the case of food, we can consume only up to a limit. It is divine to give food to the needy and thus save a life. Everyone may not be able to do this owing to their circumstances. But we can all contribute to this cause by supporting those people like the Win Borne Public Trust who have made the effort to help the poor. If more people try to follow this path then we can dream of a poverty-free nation.
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