PUNYA brings together ASU students for a worthy cause

The Rotaract Club of Apeejay Stya University Gurgaon (RaCASUG) has come up with a novel food donation drive.

Donating food to needy people with the credo that nobody should stay hungry, the Rotaract Club of Apeejay Stya University Gurgaon (RaCASUG) has come up with a novel food donation drive.

This project offers unlimited collaboration and is easy to execute. Project ‘PUNYA’ is a food donation drive which aims to make donations more frequent.

The project is also focused to lower the number of hungry people globally. The special thing about the drive is that there is no need to collect funds or food items, instead we can either make extra food at home, or buy food items from the money saved from travel expenses and donate food to the underprivileged every Sunday near your locality.

BEHIND THE SCENES

Explains Prithvi Singh Chauhan, President RaCASUG 2020-21 who is pursuing IBT from Apeejay Stya University (ASU), “This gave me an immense feeling of satisfaction. The smile which I saw on the face of hungry people inspires me to keep feeding them. With time, I developed a feeling of belongingness for them. For me every Indian is like a family member,” explains the 21-year-old student.

Archita Rath (20), a student of B.Tech Biotechnology is Chair, PUNYA & Secretary, RaCASUG (2021-22). Rath says PUNYA has helped underprivileged people across India. “It has taken our club to new heights. I’m thrilled to be a part of this wonderful project.”

“During the pandemic, we decided to donate healthy food or provide them with raw material like flour, rice and oil so that they can cook for themselves. I also took care of the environment concerns: using paper plates instead of using plastic plates. While donating I came across children who hadn’t eaten even a single meal since morning and when I donated home-made cooked food they had smiles on their faces. I was really glad to see them and it gave me an immense sense of satisfaction,” adds Rath.

Adds Pakhi Bindal (19), PR Head of the project PUNYA, “Not many people were familiar with the idea of a food donation drive. We faced a lot of challenges on the way especially the pandemic but all the effort was worth it in the end. As a new member I was confused about a lot of things but the Punya team helped me.”

 

Yugal Verma (21), a student of BBA (Financial markets) is Project Co-chair, PUNYA. He explains, “The project was very easy to execute as there was no collective spot for donations that made the drive flexible and efficient. Project PUNYA is one of a kind which not only fulfils the objective of helping the poor, but also ensures that food donation can be done on a large scale with a low budget.”

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Till now RaCASUG has made 6 successful collaborations from Rotaract Clubs of Pune, Mumbai and Coimbatore resulting in more than 25 food donations conducted so far, which have satiated the hunger of more than 200 poor people.

The aim of this provision is to inculcate social skills amongst the Apeejay Students so that they could be better adjusted in the society after completing their formal education and could understand their duties and responsibilities as a human being towards the society, nation and the world at large.

It is worth mentioning that community service is a very important aspect of this effective learning process and are given a very important place in ASU vision. As per the ordinance of ASU, every student is required to complete 20 to 50 hours of Community Work to get a degree in any programme.