It was a chilly Sunday morning in March. My dad woke me up to go to my 6:30 AM Rudram class. I was sleepy, cranky and felt like it was still 5:30 AM. There was a reason unknown to me for my grumpiness. Guess what! It was the first day of daylight savings time where you advance your clocks by an hour. Since I was still sleepy I had to literally drag myself out of bed. I was in a grumpy mood till my dad said I would be volunteering at VT Seva and that my best friend Rikhil would be joining me.
Adithya and Rikhil volunteering before COVID-19 outbreak.
Around 1:00 PM that afternoon, my dad drove me and Rikhil to the United Midway Methodist church located in Alpharetta. There we met Sandhya Auntie and Rani Auntie who were the coordinators of the event and the rest of the volunteers. And as a bonus, we even got our own VT Seva shirts!
We put the new t-shirts on and headed into the church to our assigned fruit stations. You see, there were too many people working at the fruit station, so I and Rikhil were assigned the veggie station instead. We checked the veggies to see if they were fresh and of the best quality. Then we made veggie kit bags for the families to use and organized all the packed kits into cardboard boxes.
After we were done packing the food, the event-in-charge provided us with directions for delivering their food. They have provided a sheet of paper with the details and address of the family to which we were asked to deliver the food. Then I and Rikhil helped my dad to load all the boxes into the car and drove to their address.
The family we were assigned was a family of four kids aged 2,5,7 and 11 supported by a single mom struggling to live independently. We handed over the food to her and bade her a good day. It was a wonderful feeling. I felt blessed that I didn’t have to worry about where my food was coming from. I felt happy that I helped a family who was worrying about what their next meal was. It felt like we were all Vasudhaika Kutumbakam, a big family, helping each other.
All in all, it was the most productive Sunday I’ve ever had. - Driving to the event venue for 1 hour, -Spending time packing 3 hours, -Putting smiles on others' faces is priceless. I feel fortunate that I got this opportunity to volunteer with VT Seva and I look forward to another event just like this one.
THANK YOU VT SEVA!!!!!!!
Adithya Karthik Upadhyayula and Rikhil Sai Duvvuri are 6th Graders from Atlanta.
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