Community Seva Kitchen Opens
View Photos of our Kitchen Opening Ceremony and the Brand New Kitchen!
Community Seva is happy, excited and thrilled to announce the opening of our very own kitchen. This is a dream come true for each and every one of us in the Community Seva family. With constant work over the past 18 months and the amazing help and support of San Jose city officials and the team at Health Trust, we now have our very own kitchen!
With the opening of this kitchen, we now have a place to store our groceries (without scrambling each week to find storage spaces). In addition, we can open up the cooking opportunities with us to a wider range of ages including youth volunteers(without the restrictions that are in place at shelters). Finally, with this kitchen, we can serve many more meals and deliver them to shelters all across the Bay Area. The opportunities to serve now seem limitless! Please note that we will CONTINUE to cook at shelters like we always do, but this kitchen will help us serve many more at the same time!
This wonderful place that Community Seva now calls our “home kitchen” is a fantastic achievement to mark our 5th anniversary in just a few days. Five years ago we started off with one man’s vision now with the amazing support and generosity of our 1,600+ volunteers, we have been able to serve over 67,505 meals.
Why our own kitchen? A little story from our Founder & President Nathan Ganeshan: “One day after cooking dinner at a shelter in downtown, our volunteers(wearing their signature red shirts) walked into a homeless shelter for families to check on something. As soon we walked in, a few little children walked up to us and asked: “Did you guys bring food for us”? They saw our red shirts and recognized our volunteers as the ones who always serve delicious mouthwatering food to them. When they asked that question, I was speechless! We did not expect to serve there, so we had no food with us. The thought of these kids waiting for us to cook for them while they went hungry was so heart-wrenching. I felt really bad.. that’s when the thought came to my mind that we should have our very own kitchen so that we can and cook and serve everyone. I know that Community Seva is not there yet in its vision to cook and serve every single homeless person in the community, but we will get there one day! Meanwhile, we can at least cook and serve everyone in that the shelter at least.. so that no one goes hungry to bed.”
Enormous thanks and kudos go out to: Subramanian Krishnan of Shastha Foods who sponsored our kitchen opening event, AssemblyMember Ash Kalra, Council Member Sylvia Arenas, CounciMember Don Rocha, San Jose City officials & their staff, and HealthTrust CEO Michele Lew and her excellent staff, Also thanks to media support from Evergreen Times, India West and India Currents Magazine. A portion of the Bundt Cakes served at the event were donated by Nothing Bundt Cakes and the beautifully decorated cake was donated by Menakshi Bhargava of Cake Boutique SJ, thanks to Paradise Sweets Balloons & Gifts bfor the beautiful balloons. Finally THANK you to each and everyone of you. Without the support of our community, there would be no Community Seva.
