Adding a feather to the festival mood, the fifth annual Diwali Food Drive is scheduled for Saturday, November 5th, from 9 am to noon in the listed communities.
Objective of Diwali Food Drive
Besides celebrating the event with cheerful smiles, the drive's main objective is:
- To help people in need.
- Teach our kids that our tradition of Diwali is all about giving and sharing.
Originally started from Byers Station Development community, the Diwali Food Drive is now being followed by 10 different communities. Peanut butter, rice, whole grain pasta, cereal, canned tuna, canned vegetables and canned fruits form the part of the food festival. The main drop-off location is in the Byers Station Development at 1190 Station Boulevard, which is located off Fellowship Road, south of 401.
Mr. Kiran Nukiranti, drive founder and co-organizer, who has a high concern towards the people around him, says, "We belong to a place or place belongs to us, only when we start taking care of it."
With the same motto, the Food Drive took its formation in 2012, collecting 1700 pounds of food, which was donated to the local families.
Adding to it, 30000 pounds of collected food from the last year's drive was donated to The Chester County and Kennett Square Food Banks, helping countless families to put food on their tables. According to the event organizers, through Diwali Food Drives, till date, collected and donated over 72,000 pounds of food.
These Food Drive honors the celebration of a holiday. Besides following the regular traditions on the festival, the event organizers said that, there is a strong tradition of giving food and goods to those in need.
Adding further, the organizers said that, historically its positive impact of uniting Chester County community resources to help support families in need.
This year, the drive is aiming to donate 50,000 pounds of food to the Chester County Food Bank, KACS - Kennett Area Community Services, Phoenixville Area Community and the Lords Pantry and a “Hunger free holiday in Chester County.
While the founding community Byers Station continues to honor the tradition, it has also extended to other communities and community leaders now. Below is the list:
Community -- Community Event Leader
Byers Station Community - Venkat Pathipati
Applecross - Sibasis Padhy
Bell Tavern - Srinivas Nagoti
Chestnut Ridge - Sahana Kumar
Eagle Hunt - Ritu Goyal Gupta
Malvern Hunt - Radha Alla
Reserve at Eagle - Bhanu Prakash
Waynebrook - Pavan Tirunahari
Whiteland Woods - Manjula K
Windsor Ridge - Sriram Gurthy
Sponsors of Food drive:
ACME, Spruce Infotech, Deccan Express, Curie Learning, Kaizen Learning Center, Surya Systems Inc., Remax : Jaya Duraisamy, Andrea Fonash and Mortgage Quest, are the organizations, which partly sponsored the event.
People who are interested in donating funds for the drive can do it via www.DiwaliFoodDrive.org. Funds will be used to purchase food from Acme at a discounted rate.