MIDDAY MEALS

Annamrita has long resolved to uplift the health status of children from Illiteracy and Malnutrition by providing them nutritious and hygienic mid-day meals prepared in hi-tech kitchen. This mid-day meal program is being implemented in municipal, government aided and non-aided schools for the benefit of underprivileged children. Since the launch of the school lunch program, Annamrita has set up state-of-the-art kitchens in 8 states and 21 cities in India. So far, 10,00,000 children from 6,500+ schools across India are being served 12,00,000 meals every single day. Till now, 4 billion meals were served under this program.

On 25th March, 2020, when India came to a standstill to contain the spread of a pandemic, lakhs of people lost jobs, resources, and daily meals. Annamrita Foundation decided to leverage its kitchens across the nation to do more than just serve mid-day meals. They began delivering healthy and hygienic COVID relief meals to those stranded in the lockdown.

More than two years later, over 3,00,000 COVID relief meals were delivered across 14 cities each day. Overall, 3,56,58,757 meals were distributed to those in need.

The organisation also works on the frontline in the aftermath of natural disasters, providing meals to the displaced and injured.

With the consistently rising number of COVID casualties, India’s healthcare sector was putting up a brave front working round the clock. Annamrita served nutritious meals to medical staffs to revitalize them. And this has been the sole mission of their hospital feeding program: to deliver freshly prepared, nutritious meals to our frontline warriors who are relentless in this battle against COVID-19.

Through this initiative started on March 25th 2020, all the health care staff including doctors, nurses, assistant staff, pathology staff, and office assistants from 28 hospitals were served about 6,82,630 meals till date.

To reduce infection rates during the pandemic rampant in India, essential workers in the municipal departments strived hard to keep the streets of the country sanitised every day. They put themselves and their families in harm’s way to ensure our safety. Hence, Annamrita extended in serving them nourishing meals they deserved. The beneficiaries of this program include workers at the Maintenance, Public Health, Water, Social Justice, Disaster Management, and Solid Waste Management departments.

Leveraging its kitchens across the country, the Kit Of Joy program focuses on delivering healthy and wholesome nutrition, in the form of dry rations and provisions to the society stuck in pandemic situations. Each kit donated to a child consisted of rice, flour, moong dal, chana dal, sugar, salt, cooking oil, turmeric powder and chilli powder. More than 80 million Kits Of Joy were served to people in 8 different states of India.

“Anna Daan” or the act of donating food is considered supreme and incomparable to any other form of charity according to the ancient Indian tradition. Annamrita’s program, ‘Tithi Bhoj’ enables one to sponsor meals on special occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, festivals, promotions etc. for underprivileged children. By partnering with Annamrita on such occasions one will not only continue this tradition but also help sponsor meals and bring smiles to millions of lesser privileged children in slums and tribal schools.

The program ‘Khichdi Drive’ was started with the goal of getting corporates and institutions to taste khichdi at a corporate office, wherein, employees get to taste the same khichdi meal that is being served to the children across schools that day. This activity not only helps fundraise but also creates greater awareness for the cause.