Shelves at Naperville’s Loaves & Fishes Community Services are now a lot more full thanks to more than 50 local Dharmic organizations. As part of the annual SewaDiwali donation drive, volunteers dropped off roughly 3,750 pounds of food at the nonprofit on Thursday night.
“SewaDiwali is an event where many of the community organizations come together and collect food, and the background for this is the Diwali festival,” said Nags Rajaram, a volunteer with the local chapter of Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh USA (HSS). “It’s the Festival of Lights, where we celebrate the victory of good over evil and light over darkness. We wanted to spread our joy with our communities.”
SewaDiwali drive growing larger each year
According to Rajaram, the SewaDiwali food drive has taken place for the past five or six years now, and has widened in scope since its inception.
“Especially since the pandemic, it’s taken on a new meaning,” he said. “There was so much chaos in society, and food insecurity and things like that. So we’ve grown even bigger.”
In total, more than 60 Indian American groups contributed about 10,000 pounds of food in the western Chicagoland suburbs this year as part of the SewaDiwali efforts. The remaining supply will be divided equally between other non-profits in the area, including the Aurora Interfaith Food Pantry on Jericho Road.
Seeing the world as ‘One Family’
In addition to honoring the Festival of Lights, the SewaDiwali food drive also falls under the Hindu belief of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, which translates to the phrase “the world is one family.”
“All of us human beings, as well as other living things, we are all connected in some way,” said Madhu Uppal, who is a member of the Alliance of Indian Americans of Naperville Area (AIANA). “So we believe that by serving others, we are actually serving our own needs also.”
SewaDiwali food drives have now spread to 35 different states across the U.S. with 110,000 pounds of food donated in 2023 alone.
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