FOOD FOR LIFE

Established by Srila Prabhupada in 1972, who stated that “No one within 10 miles of a centre should go hungry”, Hare Krishna ‘Food for Life’ provides relief to suffering on a worldwide scale.

It is currently the world’s largest vegetarian food-relief operation, being active in over 60 countries across the globe. ‘Food for Life’ serves only Krishna ‘prasadam’ (purely vegetarian foodstuffs, spiritualised by offering to the Lord) which, having been offered to Krishna, gain a unique flavour which satisfies the palate and nourishes the body – as well as purifying the soul, giving eternal spiritual benefit beyond an ordinary food relief operation. ‘Food for Life’ serve meals daily in cities across the world, and also have provided relief in many emergency situations such as earthquakes in Armenia and India, the war-zones of Grozny and Sarajevo, floods in West Bengal, and tornadoes in the United States.

The problem of starvation isn’t one of nature’s supply, but one of fair distribution of foodstuffs and land usage. The meat industry constitutes a large part of the problem, as meat takes 12 times more resources to produce than a vegetarian based diet. Land which otherwise could be utilised for producing grains, is destroyed with cattle ranches to cater to today’s fast-food outlets, which in turn cause health and environment problems. The slaughter of animals and destruction of environments produces reactions which society is suffering from, but ‘Food for Life’ provides a spiritual solution alleviating karmic reactions, a healthier and more practical diet, and immediate relief to people suffering from modern society’s abuse of nature. Food for Life currently operates from a mobile food van, which visits:

Newtown Community Centre at 6.00pm-7:00pm weekdays (opposite the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre).

After providing this service for almost a decade, Food for Life in Sydney now operates on the basis of a mobile food van. Going out during the evenings on every week-day, free hot meals are served at Newtown (opposite train station), to a great response from the public.

Food for Life - Newtown – 1990’s

Since the Temple in Kings Cross moved to North Sydney in around 1990, shortly afterwards, Food for Life was established in a centre in King Street, Newtown. The centre became famous throughout the city for distributing high quality free vegetarian meals 7 days a week, and became very popular, often serving over 200 people each day.

Food for Life - Kings Cross – 1980’s

Food for Life was established in the late 1970’s in Kings Cross, where the Temple there began to serve out leftover prasadam to hungry and homeless people in the area. It soon opened a centre distributing free vegetarian meals to the public. That centre alone served out over 1 million free meals since it’s inception. The late Reverend Ted Noffs (Anti-Drug campaigner and founder of the Wayside Chapel and Life Education Centres) said, “Not only is there food, and that’s very important, but there is also fellowship and it’s given in a charitable and friendly way… Centres like the Hare Krishna Centre are invaluable, and not only invaluable, but absolutely necessary to deal with the kind of harshness in our society today. It’s a hand out with something else – human compassion – and it gives welfare a human face.”