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Food for Life – Every Sunday in Houston

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All it takes is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a piece of fresh fruit, and one half-pint of juice to keep a child from going hungry for a day.

This is why each week since April 2004, groups of about 15 to 20 volunteers have been coming out to The Hare Krishna Temple of Houston to prepare sack lunches consisting of sandwiches, fruit, and juice for an estimated 300 to 500 hungry children. Every Sunday between the hours 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., the dining hall of the temple is turned into an assembly line of sorts with some of the volunteers lined up spreading peanut butter or jelly on bread; others focus on bagging the sandwiches; still others fill brown paper bags with fruit and juice and line them up in rows on two long tables.

Can I help pay for some of the supplies?





I want to volunteer in Houston!

Every Sunday
Time: 3:00 – 5:00pm
Location: Hare Krishna Temple
Address: 1320 West 34th Street, Houston, TX 77018 [MAP]
Cost: Free

To date, more than 100,000 sack lunches have been prepared over the 9+ years. We’d like to continue moving in this same direction.

“I think the best way to describe this project is that six days out of the week we do something for ourselves – ‘it’s my house, my school, my grades.'” This is a way to take a few hours out of life to do something for someone else,” said Sonia Sardana, one of the volunteer coordinators who initiated this project.

The Reality of Hunger:
– One out of every three children in Houston goes hungry each day.
– Of the major cities in the United States, Houston is second only to Detroit in the number of hungry children.
– 13 million kids live in households that do not have an adequate supply of food . (Courtesy: United States Department of Agriculture)
– 40 % of all emergency shelter food recipients are children, although they represent only 25% of the U.S. population. (Courtesy: United States Department of Agriculture)
– More than one-third (38%) of families leaving welfare reported that they ran out of food and did not have money for more. (Courtesy: Urban Institute)

The Consequences of Hunger:
– Hungry children, even those who experience only mild malnutrition during the critical stages of their development, may suffer irreparable harm. (Courtesy: Center on Hunger and Poverty)
– Hungry children have a harder time learning in school, shorter attention spans, and suffer more absences due to illness. (Courtesy: Center on Hunger and Poverty)
– Children who do not receive adequate nourishment may suffer abnormal brain, cognitive, and psychological development which, if not corrected, can be irreparable. (Courtesy: America ‘s Second Harvest)

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