You may never have heard of Mahoba, a small town in the Bundelkhand region in Madhya Pradesh. But the residents of this small town are doing something truly heartwarming and commendable. They make food in their homes to feed the town’s hungry and homeless. An extra portion of simple roti and sabzi is made in the kitchens of over 500 households, collected by volunteers, and distributed by shops in the town.The initiative was named Roti Bank by Tara Patkar and the small team of 10 who helped him get it off the ground; today they feed at least 1000 people every single day.“All ideologies and philosophies are of no use if there is someone near you who goes to sleep on a hungry stomach,” says Tara, who used to work as a journalist with Indian Express in Lucknow. “I became a journalist so I could contribute to society. But I felt I needed to do more work on the ground. So I left my career to devote all my time to social service,” he adds.
Tara returned to Mahoba, his home town, and together, with like-minded friends, started Roti Bank in April 2015. The team would go from door-to-door, explaining the idea behind making a little extra food for the hungry. To their pleasant surprise, over 40 households readily agreed to contribute. Next, the team approached shopkeepers in the town centre to find out if they would be willing to place distribution boxes in their shops. Even here, the team got an overwhelmingly positive response.
Roti Bank’s model is simple – households make and pack rotis and sabzi. The households decide how much they wish to give. Volunteers pick up the food in thermocol boxes from people’s homes and deliver them at various designated Roti Bank locations, which are mostly shops. Volunteers and shopkeepers distribute the food to the needy. People can have as much food as they want, for free.
Since Mahoba is a small town, news of what some households were doing spread fast. Many more people wanted to join in.Within the next three months, the number of households providing food for the hungry rose from the initial 40 to 400!
Source,Credit & Full Story at: http://www.thebetterindia.com/75987/roti-bank-hunger-mahoba-bundelkhand-tara-patkar/