APRIL 17th – Miyagi prefecture, Japan — Food for Life Global affiliates Krishna Temple Japan and Govindas Restaurant with the generous support of international and local donors embarked on a 5 hour car ride from Tokyo to five refugee shelters in North Eastern Japan. Cooks from the Govindas restaurant in Funabori (Tokyo) began cooking around 3.30am. At 5.30am a convoy of three SUVs filled with cooked food and fresh fruits and vegetables, left Govinda’s vegetarian restaurant, finally arriving at the first of five shelters in the Miyagi prefecture around 11am Sunday morning.Distribution took place in the towns of Iwanuma, Watari and Natori which are all located in Miyagi prefecture.“The people were so happy to receive the meal,” explained volunteers Purnima Shah and Arati Doshi. At most of the refugee shelters around Japan a typical meal consists of rice and miso soup. Food for Life’s tasty vegan curry, salad, snack bars, and bread was a welcome change.
Along with the cooked lunch, over 800 kgs of fresh fruit and vegetables were also donated including, lettuce, ninepin, daikon radish, carrots, potatoes, Green beans, cauliflower, broccoli, green peas, negi, ko negi, ingen, chingensai, horensou, shunpike, mizuna, reckon, satsumaimo, cabbage and 20 boxes of tomatoes, 600 bananas, 300 apple, 300 oranges and 200 grapefruits.
Some of the shelters also received face masks, goggles, toiletries, and other personal products.
Donations for the relief efforts came from:
- Food for Life Global 400,000 Yen
- Anup Agrawal 200,000 Yen
- Raghupati Rapelli 10,000 Yen
- Shrikant and Purnima Shah 161,000 Yen
- Sailesh and Arati Doshi (Fruits and vegetables)
- Vaisheshika Das 58471 Yen
- Sukhada Devi 16766 Yen
- Nirmal Yoga studio: 46000 Yen
- Vancha Atita Das (Hide Azuma): 10000 Yen
FFL Volunteers from Tokyo included: Madhumangal Das, Shrikant and Purnima Shah, Bhaktavatsal Das, Sailesh and Arati Doshi, Hide San, Chihiro Mataji, Nakamura San, Kumazawa San, Endo San, Tanahashi San Miseda San and Paul Turner.
They were assisted by local Volunteers: Fuda San and Sugawara San
See: FFL Japan Playlist
Food for Life Global and its affiliates are planning to continue the distribution of vegetable curry and fresh fruits and vegetables on a weekly basis. Please support this work.
