10 Ways to Donate to Akshaya Patra

On a quiet Sunday noon, Amit was glancing through the latest news on his phone. A few articles later, he came across a rather distressing article about children in India. It said, ‘almost half of India’s children are chronically malnourished and hunger is the main cause for illness among children.’ This led Amit to make a resolution — to donate to schools to ensure students are served hot and nutritious meals on every school day. 

The Akshaya Patra Foundation, a Bengaluru-based NGO, gives you the chance to sponsor mid-day meals of children for an entire academic year. As a choice, you can also sponsor kitchen equipment or donate a vehicle to help strengthen the operations. Because meals are prepared for over 1.5 million children across India every day, the organisation ensures that the kitchen operations are efficient and food is delivered to schools on time.

Here’s a quick guide to all of Akshaya Patra’s donation options!

Donate online

Your contribution of Rs 750 can help in feeding nutritious mid-day meals to a child for an entire academic year. You can donate online by choosing the number of children you would like to sponsor for a year.

Donate a vehicle

With the help of Akshaya Patra’s blue bus, beneficiary schools receive their mid-day meals on time. You can donate a vehicle to the organisation and have you name or company logo displayed on the vehicle.

Sponsor kitchen equipment

Every morning, Akshaya Patra’s kitchens cook more than 1 lakh meals. While we focus on feeding more children, you can help us increase productivity by sponsoring a kitchen equipment. 

Sponsor a school for a year

The organisation caters to over 10,948 government schools in India. You can now sponsor a government school’s mid-day meals for a year and help the students enjoy fresh and nutritious meals.

Donate in honour of someone

The organisation gives you the opportunity to make a thoughtful contribution—donating in honour of someone you admire. Through this, not only will you honour an individual, but also support the cause.

Donate in memory of someone

To cherish memories and to express love and respect, you can donate in memory of someone you love. Your donation to help sustain the mid-day meal programme will be valuable and appreciated for its thoughtfulness.

Donate for a special occasion

How do you wish to celebrate your birthday? Share your joy with Akshaya Patra beneficiaries by donating on your special day. Be it anniversary or birthday, you can make it more special by supporting a cause.

Donate through cheque/DD

You can write a Cheque or Demand Draft in the name of The Akshaya Patra Foundation. Since this is an offline donation, we can arrange a pick-up service or you send the cheque through post.

Make a donation via wire transfer

You can donate to Akshaya Patra through wire transfer. Once you submit your information on the website, one of Akshaya Patra’s representatives will get in touch with you to further the process.

Set ECS donation

You can transfer funds on a periodical basis by setting up an Electronic Clearance Service to make ECS donation. This is an easy and hassle-free mode of transferring funds.

For the organisation to continue operating on a large scale, you can make a contribution of your choice and help the Foundation achieve its mission of feeding 5 million children by 2020. With support from the Government and many philanthropists, The Foundation continues its school lunch operations across the country, running the world’s largest NGO-driven mid-day meal programme. 

How will you benefit? 

Donations to Akshaya Patra are eligible for 100% deduction under Section 35 AC / 80 GGA of the Indian Income Tax Act.  When you make a donation, you will be given a receipt and a 100% Tax Exemption Certificate along with a ‘thank you’ letter via courier or post. The certificate and receipt which will reach you within 10 days of making the donation and can be used to avail 100% tax exemption for the respective financial year.

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5 Ways to Get Involved with Akshaya Patra

Surya is born into a family whose monthly income is not more Rs 3,000. While his father toils to feed the family every day, he knows that someday, Surya would have to attend school to be more self-reliant. At the age of five, he is admitted to the closest government school. His father is motivated to send Surya to school for various reasons—free education, an opportunity to socialise and most importantly, a wholesome and nutritious mid-day meal served every day!

The Akshaya Patra Foundation, an NGO in India, strives to feed the hungry children everyday by implementing mid-day meal programme in schools across the country. Currently, the Foundation is feeding over 1.5 million government school children in 10 states of India. You can get involved too and experience the journey of eliminating hunger among school children.

Here are five ways to get involved with this children’s NGO that runs the world’s largest school lunch programme:

1. Connect with the purpose: Akshaya Patra, an NGO for children, aims to end classroom hunger by feeding nutritious meals to school children on every school day. In the year 2000, the organisation was founded on the belief that no child should be deprived of education due to hunger and that has been the roadmap of this Foundation’s journey. When you empathise with the cause, you are a step closer to making India a hunger-free country for children.

2. It only costs Rs 750: A young student in a government school gets free lunch for an entire year and that is possible through your small but significant contribution. It costs only Rs 750 to feed a child for a year to ensure that his/ her education is not interrupted. You can donate to charity and also benefit from 100% tax exemption on the donation. Small amounts, when accumulated, greatly enrich children’s lives.

3. Create your own fundraising campaign: While there are many donation options, you also have a choice of creating a personalised online fundraising campaign on the Foundation’s website or on Akshaya Patra's mobile app. Once a campaign is created, you can share it with your friends and together, reach out to more children.

4. Download Akshaya Patra mobile app: The organisation moves along with technology. Its all-new app helps you extend your support while you are on the go—you can create campaigns, donate and stay updated at the tip of your fingers!  The app allows you to search kitchen locations pan India and exhibits the total number of beneficiaries and schools each location is catering to. The mobile app is available on both Android and iOS.

5. Be a volunteer: Giving your time and effort towards a cause can help the society in many ways. When you volunteer with Akshaya Patra, you are not just connected to the cause but you are also exposed to mid-day meal programme and the overall operations of the organisation.

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Why We Need to Be More Ambitious About Food in India?

How many times do we read a bunch of food stories from BuzzFeed or The Condé Nast Traveller? It’s probably one every day or if we are not that really a foodie, a few every week. Stories of food depravity don’t really cross our minds. Isn’t it? India is home to 194.6 million undernourished people, the highest in the world as reported by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. This makes up 15% of our population. But the facts about under-fed and hungry kids are way more alarming. While the report did state that the number of underweight children declined from 49.2 per cent in 1990 to 30 per cent in 2013, it’s just not enough. Unless every NGO in India strives to feed every child in India, this situation wouldn’t improve.

There indeed have been improvements through the mid-day meal scheme, tax exemptions to NGOs and various other efforts of the government to feed children in India. Yet one in every four kids is malnourished. Take for instance, in a family of four kids, one kid is probably going without food often.

Let’s take a look at some facts about Indian children:

• About 27 million children are born each year in India. 
• Every fifth child in the world is Indian 
• India has 440 million children – more than the population of North American states 
• Nearly 2 million of these children do not live to the age of five. Reason? Malnourishment.

So how are we feeding these children? It’s disturbing enough that 3,000 children in India are dying every day from poor diet-related ailment. To top that, 24% of world’s under-five deaths are happening in India with lack of food being a major cause. Unfortunately, our higher economic growth has somehow not yielded higher food consumption or better diets. So while overall our rate of malnourished children has declined, we are failing to attempt greater things for feeding the hungry. Wonder if one should be happy that we saved 70% of our children from malnourishment or sad that 30% of them are still under danger?

The need of the hour is to lend a helping hand to fight against world hunger. Each one of us has the power to make a huge difference by supporting in our own little ways by participating in charity fundraising. A small contribution of Rs 750 can put a child through an academic year filled with nutritious mid-day meals in school. Feed the hungry child with one full year of healthy and wholesome meals, and it will go a long way for a child who might have mid-day meal as the only proper meal in his/ her entire day. If this rings a bell with you, donate to The Akshaya Patra Foundation now!

Akshaya Patra is a not for profit organization that runs a mid-day meal programme providing 1.5 million meals to school students across 10 states in India. Join the movement now!

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