Handing out at a roadside foot cart and munching delicious Chinese may give you a different feeling next time around, thanks to ‘Food Court’. One such joint stationed at Kanke Road is the representative of many more on the way where charity is served with delicacy.
Being run under the noble idea of ‘Eat to Feed’ by a self-propelled group of professionals and individuals and building up with every passing day, the ‘Food Court’ has discovered excellent way to extract charity from customers’ pocket without a pinch of salt.
“Our idea is to scratch the inherent tendency of ours which is to help the needy and downtrodden sharing this very society with us. The tendency of charity and pleasure of giving has done dormant with time, especially in the generation next of the upper middle class. Through the ‘Food Court’ carts we serve hygienic street foods charging almost the same price but after letting the customers know the a part of the price paid would go to feed those who are forced to spend their days and nights hungry on road sides,” says PK Pradhan, a businessman and a film producer by profession.
The idea to serve the hungry, ill, disabled persons residing in slums spending on begging at temples and streets, feeding on thrown away food items came when Pradhan attended a ceremonial lecture. “I was asked there what I can do or pay back to the society? I replied to myself that I would help people in getting better quality food with dignity. Then only in 2017, I shared the idea with a groups of likeminded friends and went for it,” adds he.
Initially it was based entirely on personal contributions which were coming from shares from every member under a small banner of ‘Ulli Feeding Foundation’, named after the mother of one of the members of the group. They started by contributing a portion of their profit to feed the needy.
“The foundations set up a centralised kitchen where meal is cooked and served to the people begging at temple stairs, at Gurudwaras or in slums one day in a week. Packed meal packets are served to them by the team members. Later we intensified the food distribution and expanded it to Jamshedpur also besides Ranchi.
Now we are flooded with the proposals to start similar ventures from Ramgarh, Dhanbad and even from Aurangabad and Gaya of neighbouring Bihar,” supplemented Priyanshu Tueriyar of the group.
Gradually the idea has reached to the next level where indirect contribution from the society was sought.
“Till date over 19,000 poor people have been served by the Foundation. Since the response was encouraging, we went for ‘Food Courts’ where the customers would be given a token named as ‘TOSS’ meaning ‘Treat on Street Site’ against their contribution made to the cause. 25 per cent of the profit earned would go to serve the meal to the hungry all over even in hospitals, night shelters and other such places,” says Sasmita, another UFF member.
Pradhan also submitted that the carts, which have noodles, Manchurians, pav-bhaji, dosa etc in their menu with FASSI certification and proper hygiene, would also become a medium to provide employment to about 200-odd people who would be operating and managing the joints.
“We had put the stall at up market Kanke Road in front of ‘Reliance Mart’. Several such carts would be placed all across Ranchi in the days to come,” says Pradhan while he mentions about encouraging responses received from the customers who are found visiting the joints with their children so that the young can get a dose of ‘food for thought’ early in their lives.