Its simple – phenomenal amounts of food goes to waste everyday across canteens & kitchens at corporate organizations in Bangalore. This food is simply thrown away!

Swabhimaan collects this food from 3 corporates at 2:30 pm  & distributes it to the needy and poor in the slums of Bangalore at 5 pm. The food is used for dinner. The impact – we provide 500 meals a day and serve 11000 meals a month (Not on weekends). The 3 corporates whom we are proud to call partners are – Intuit (1200 employees), Cadence (1500 employees) & Amadeus (800 employees). A big thank you to them.

Our cost of distribution is just 3.3 INR/meal. A 1000 INR donation from you feeds 300 hungry people!

This campaign is to raise money for 22000 meals!!!

WHERE IS THIS SLUM?

The slum is in the Rajendranagara cluster in Koramangala, Bangalore.

Located on the periphery of Koramangala, this is a home to hundreds of needy souls who eke out a daily living as labor, maids & handymen. These families often have large families to support and are beneficiaries of the excess food from our corporate partners.

These hungry people cannot imagine a day without this food now!

Image: We pick up excess food from canteens of the 3 corporate partners and deliver it to the needy & hungry in the slums at Rajendranagara on the outskirts of Koramangala ,Bangalore.

WHAT WE DO

My name is Venkataraman Iyer (60 years) & I have worked in the corporate world in both India & abroad including a 20-year stint with Unilever in Oman. Now retired, my wife Vijaya Iyer and I started the Swabhimaan charitable trust in 2000 to do a lot of work for the needy. The idea of food distribution to the needy is one of our initiatives, which we started in 2015.

As a retired couple & a vision to impact the needy, we came up with the idea of taking surplus food from MNC and software companies and redistributing it to the poor.

I approached INTUIT, requesting them to handover the food left over from the canteen after the employees had finished their lunch. With a little persuasion, INTUIT agreed to give the Trust the food, on the condition that we took responsibility for the food that was served. Thus began a great initiative to solve hunger issues of the underprivileged simply by redistributing the left over of the privileged segment.

SWABHIMAAN not only takes the responsibility of collecting and redistributing food but also indemnifies all its partners of their key concern  - Food contamination. SWABHIMAAN ensures that the food is kept in good condition till it is given away.

Image: Surplus food being transported from the van to the distribution center

Image: People waiting to collect food at the distribution center

HOW IT WORKS

Swabhimaan collect the food at 2:30pm every day from the corporate organization and we distribute it to deserving people that we have identified in the underprivileged and slum areas in Rajendranagara cluster in Koramangala, Bangalore. We have identified deserving people through our local volunteers and a baseline survey to ensure that only the deserving are provided with surplus grocery or cooked food.

Each family is provided with a Swabhimaan card, which they carry to the distribution center each day. The food is served daily at about 5 pm. Families use the food provided for dinner!

Fund this initiative & you get Tax benefits.

We unfortunately cannot accept funds from foreign donors!

Spurred by the response from INTUIT and the people benefitting from this endeavor we approached more organizations. Swabhimaan now has organizations like Cadence and Amadeus on board as well. With food supplies from these 3 organizations, we reach out to over 500 people a day and serve over 11,000 meals a month.

Swabhimaan has also tied up with Spell Foods under the brand name Bagels & Bakes who provide us with 100 - 120 loaves of bread everyday. Their volunteers pick it up from the production facility at around 6am and distribute the bread to approximately 100 families everyday for breakfast.

Image: Loaves of bread provided by Bagels & Bakes being distributed

WHAT WE NEED

It costs us 36000 INR per month to distribute 11000 meals. We are doing this crowdfunding campaign to raise money for distributing 22000 meals. 

If we raise more we can use the money for the subsequent months.

Swabhimaan is looking to scale up this initiative so that they can reach more people. But the logistics are turning into a nightmare. Though the food is collected at no cost, Swabhimaan has had to invest in the running, transportation, serving and storage processes.

What goes into the 36000 INR monthly costs?

Currently, we have rented out a TATA Ace for the transportation of food. We hired a driver and an assistant for the logistics. They then rely on teams of volunteers to serve the food to the people. We have also hired one person to wash and make sure the vessels are ready for the next day’s consignment. Finally, we have rented out a small warehouse to store all the necessary vessels and equipment. It is to fund these logistics that Swabhimaan needs your help.

Through this campaign the trust hopes to raise enough money to cover the cost of this operation for 2 months. We will keep running this initiative beyond those 2 months as well if need be. 

Should we exceed the campaign goal, we will then use the extra funds to cover the costs of operations and logistics for the subsequent months.