Extended Narayana Seva at Atlanta Mission – Women’s Shelter (Sat at 9:15AM)
Started in 1938 as a soup kitchen to feed men displaced by Great Depression, Atlanta Mission strives to transform the lives of those facing homelessness. To meet the increasing needs in the society, Atlanta mission continued expanding its services and in 1969, became the first entity in the United States to offer services to women facing homelessness. Today, the mission offers following services:
Every year, about 1600 reach out for help.
The Need: Being a residential facility, Women’s shelter provides hot meals to its clients. Though most of the meals are taken care of by the shelter, clients were not getting dinners on Saturdays. Atlanta Sai Center came to know of this need and in June of 2015 started a service to feed clients. We started calling this service ‘Extended Narayana Seva’.
The service: Every other week, we meet at a devotee’s place and bag a fruit (banana), Apple & Eve Organic Quencher, Mott’s Organic Apple Sauce, Kirkland Variety Snack Nuts, Nature Valley Snack Bar, Lancy Peanut Butter Toasty Crackers, Water. These items are carefully selected to have mixed shelf life to serve as light snack or as a light meal. While chanting prayers, devotees unpack items and make about ~150 bags. After bagging, we sing bhajans and drop bags at the Shelter.
Interesting fact: Since the start in June 2015, this service has never stopped. Even during the peak of pandemic, we delivered unpacked items to the shelter.