I volunteer to feed the homeless after work. If I can, you can too

The corporate rut had completely drained me. My volunteering experience helps me enjoy my life more.

Swasti Saraogi Swasti Saraogi
सितंबर 28, 2016
The Robin Hood Army is a volunteer based organization that works to give surplus food to the less fortunate. Photo courtesy: Facebook/Robin Hood Army

The past 5 years (my early twenties) have been a total blur. I've spent these years, slogging to get that formidable degree, or killing myself to make a living. The weekends were spent drowning away all the self-created stress over coffee and beer! The only 'fun' thing that a 16-hour-job left me with were the meaningless lunch(es), after work dinners, crazy Friday night parties. Amidst, all this noise I was getting drilled for missing out on the marriage bus by nosy relatives.  I like all my peers was living a robotic life. Work. Sleep. Party. Repeat.

The daily rut would left me with a sense of dissatisfaction, unproductiveness and gloominess which killed me from inside. For a person who was planning to do a degree in social work way back in high school, I was here sitting with this CA degree, doing nothing remotely close to making a difference to anyone's life. I was in no way giving back to society. Reaching middle ground, I thought why don't I volunteer somewhere even if its two hours in a week.

This is when my friend told me about the 'Robin Hood Army'. I immediately turned to Google, and devoured all the information the Internet had to offer. I contacted them immediately. The Robin Hood Army (RHA) is a volunteer based organization that works to get surplus food from restaurants across to the less fortunate people.

The regular drives across chapters in the NCR region take place every Sunday evening. Photo courtesy: Facebook/RobinHoodArmy The regular drives across chapters in the NCR region take place every Sunday evening. Photo courtesy: Facebook/RobinHoodArmy

The local chapters (with over 5000 volunteers spread across India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Australia and Philippines) are run by friends and colleagues who hope to create a difference in their own small way. For example, restaurants in Green Park, Delhi will contribute to the homeless of the locality via volunteers who live in Green Park. The lesser fortunate sections RHA helps include homeless families, night shelters, orphanages, and patients from public hospitals.

The regular drives across chapters in the NCR region take place every Sunday evening for about 2-3 hours. This seemed ideal to me and I signed up for it.

I went for my first Drive with the Delhi chapter on one of the Sundays last winter. Aarushi Batra (a founder member) briefed me about the organization, their work so far, and how they function. We then divided ourselves to distribute food to the shelters, families living under flyovers, slum clusters and footpaths.

I was truly overwhelmed while serving food to the patients and their families outside AIIMS hospital in Delhi. The energetic Robins miraculously made the 200-250 odd people queue-up to hand over khichdi and rajma chawal packets, which was collected from restaurants before the drive.

 Ever Since RHA happened for me, I have had more productive weekends. Photo courtesy: Facebook/RobinHoodArmy Ever Since RHA happened for me, I have had more productive weekends. Photo courtesy: Facebook/RobinHoodArmy

The gratitude people have after holding a food packet gave me tremendous joy. It was a rewarding experience. After the first few drives, I joined the Gurgaon chapter and it's been an excellent journey. It's wonderful to see the kids and elders alike run to us each Sunday evening, the moment they see the 'Green Shirt' Didi(s) and Bhaiya(s) park the cars at their clusters.

Irrespective of the type of food we offer, they are excited to see us. Ever Since RHA happened for me, I have had more productive weekends. I am actually a happier person now. I can go on to say (in a rather dramatized tone) that 'Mein har Sunday chain ki neend soti hu'. Whether it's a visit to old age homes, HIV infected orphanages, shelters homes or the slum clusters, you come back home happy with a sense of accomplishment which no amount of partying on the weekend or fancy dinners gave me.

 

लगातार ऑडनारी खबरों की सप्लाई के लिए फेसबुक पर लाइक करे      

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