Food For Education: An interview with Anu Prabhala, Co-Chair of Akshaya Patra’s DC Chapter
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Anu explains her passion for contributing toward the philanthropic cause of feeding millions of school children across India every day.
About Anu Prahala Anu Prabhala - Strategic Communications - Lead - MITRE | LinkedIn
Anu Prabhala is a career communications and publishing professional, and a writer, currently working as Strategic Communications Lead with MITRE, a federally funded research and development center. She has spent most of her career in the non-profit section on such issues as democracy building, developmental disability, and international education. In her former life, Anu was a French teacher to college students in her native India and at the University of Florida. Anu has a Masters in French Literature from the University of Florida and a Masters in Public Communication from American University, Washington DC. In her spare time, Anu loves to write, volunteer, travel the world, and explore knowledge with her 11-year old son.
About Akshaya Patra Foundation
Established in 2000, Akshaya Patra is the World’s largest NGO school meal program, providing hot, nutritious school lunches to over 1.8 million children in over 19,257 schools through 57 kitchens in 12 states and two Union Territories in India. It costs only $20 to feed a child for an entire school year. Washington DC, Virginia & Maryland Chapters | Akshaya Patra Foundation (foodforeducation.org)
What makes you happy?
I am the happiest writing, helping/mentoring someone, traveling, and exploring knowledge with my 11-year old. The last one was something I worked toward, inspired by the Miracle of Mindfulness by the Vietnamese monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hahn (a book by the way, always at my bedside since 2007). In here, brother Allen, who was having trouble finding time for himself raising children, pays a visit to Thay (as Thich Nhat Hahn is affectionately called) and explains how he has unlimited time, family et al.: “In the past, I used to look at my time as if it were divided into several parts...But now I try not to divide time into parts anymore. I consider my time with Joey and Sue as my own time. When I help Joey with his home- work, I try to find ways of seeing his time as my own time...The time for him becomes my own time. The same with Sue. The remarkable thing is that now I have unlimited time for myself!"
I have unlimited time for example, fine tuning the nerd in me with my 11-year old, and of course, it’s not perfect all the time...
What are some of the beliefs that propel your body, mind, and spirit?
Some of my core beliefs are, the world is truly a small place—we are way more alike than different and intentionally inculcating a sense of tolerance is key. I grew up Hindu, went to a Zoroastrian school where I was taught by Catholic and Zoroastrian teachers, and lived through nasty Hindu-Muslim riots and these experiences and more shaped my beliefs. Our Self is divine—we have an infinite source of wisdom right within us, in our Self. It’s a matter of tapping into it to realize we are way more stronger than we give ourselves credit for. So journey into the Self than running away from it and it’s an amazing journey. The key to happiness is to make friends with the Mind. As they explain in Vedanta, the mind is like a river. It needs quantity control (through karma yoga or work), quality control (through bhakti yoga or faith), and direction control (through gyana yoga or the pursuit of knowledge). Acknowledging that our thoughts are not us and controlling them through the three ways above will help us discover our Self and get us to a place of peace and strength
Did you have any experience in charitable work prior to AP?
I spent most of my career dedicated to public-spirited endeavors with international non-profit organizations, so in that sense, yes, I have spent most of my adult life propelled by the belief that there’s something bigger than myself, and that someone else’s need is bigger than mine at any given time. With Akshaya Patra, I now have a concerted forum to pursue charitable work.
Why did you decide to start a DC chapter of Akshaya Patra?
Approaching mid-life, I started going through the process of really trying to figure out what I wanted to do for the rest of my years on planet earth and started preparing a bucket list. Ranking high on the list was to find a way to give back to my birth country, India, and also infuse a charitable bone into my 11-year old son who is born here with all the privileges life affords (knock on wood). My brother introduced me to Akshaya Patra, an India-based non-profit organization that serves warm, mid-day meals to 1.8 million (yes!) school children daily across India. During one visit to India a couple of years back, I arranged for the three of us to visit an AP kitchen and school in Bangalore, India, and was sold! The industrial-sized kitchens running on sigma procedures, the state-of-the-art vans delivering fresh food to more than 800 local schools each morning within hours of preparation, and most importantly, the hopeful and smiling faces of school students awaiting for some the only meal that day was deeply moving. When we returned to the U.S., it was serendipity…a local friend of ours whose son attends the same school as ours sat on the board of AP and we spoke about our mutual interest in the organization, and before we knew it, the DC area chapter of AP was born! Check us out at https://www.facebook.com/AkshayaPatraDC (and do “like” us!).
Why AP but not other causes?
It’s a happy combination of my interest in food, education, and India. There’s a certain universality with food. It’s something we cannot live without, yet so many people around the world remain hungry.
With Akshaya Patra, food serves not just to feed a child, but it entices the child to remain in school and study, and education is truly the way out of poverty.
For most of the AP children, getting that one, mid-day meal is the incentive to attend school. Also, it helped that we actually see what difference the non-profit makes—it serves 28 million warm mid-day meals a day to school kids across India. I’ll also add that there might be a namesake factor here. My name is Annapurna, the Hindu goddess of...none other than food! So perhaps it was meant to be that I serve this charitable organization.
What was the most rewarding experience you got since starting Akshaya Patra?
Community building and seeing our son warm up to thinking about the cause of children and education. We launched the Akshaya Patra chapter in February 2020 at a lovely, in-person gathering at our home, and then COVID struck! We had to become creative with our work in building awareness of AP without leaving home and meeting soul in person! So we embarked upon a series of online musical events each month featuring local artists, and we even did a local talent show with school children from around the DC area. It was so heartwarming to see the community come together around music, dance, and cultural programming. It was a particularly meaningful opportunity and a creative outlet for children during the difficult COVID lockdown. My son along with my co-chair’s son also became youth ambassadors and compared one of the shows. That was precious!
Why not just give money instead of getting involved?
You could. And being involved ground up in running a local chapter of a charity is not mutually exclusive from donating funds☺. It takes only $20 to feed one child in India for one year, yet there are millions of school-going children in India, and the process of feeding needs to happen every single day. So ultimately, our goal is to raise funds for this noteworthy cause! But it takes a village so to speak to organize events, create programming, promote them via social media, and a lot more, so we need volunteers to donate their valuable time and skills. How to occupy your time influences the direction of your thoughts (remember, gyana yoga and direction control of the mind?) and heading in this direction of volunteering for AP keeps my body, mind, and spirit healthy and happy! That’s why I continue to work on this cause.
How did you manage your full schedule?
Just by trying my best. That’s really all you can do and it’s never perfect, but the act of trying to perfect the imperfect gets you some semblance of balance and keeps your spirit intact. It’s always a juggling act with a young child and his schedule of activities, my work, house work, and this rather strange burden of a COVID lifestyle where former supports for cooking, cleaning, etc. have disappeared due to the isolated lifestyle. But where there’s a will, there’s a way and I believe if you are committed to something, you make time and effort for it.
What has been the most challenging task given to you with this journey?
I think finding volunteers to do all the work associated with running a local chapter. Starting a chapter is no mean feat. But we managed and we are looking for more volunteers. The journey has been fulfilling even though it began just a year back. We are always looking for volunteers! If the cause appeals to you, just reach out to either me or my co-chair Rajiv Jain (email at the end). We’d love to hear from you!
What do you expect to get from your work at AP? Do you feel like you got it? If not, what surprises you got along the way?
The bane of life is expectations or vasanas as they say in Vedanta. There’s a rather well-known verse from the Bhagavad Gita, (Chapter 2, verse 47) “Karmanye vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana” loosely translated as, “You only have the right to work, but not expect the fruit of your action.” So personally, I expect nothing except to do my best and let the work and its outcomes roll out, hopefully, most optimally. I think we have made a difference in the past year despite the tough COVID situation—we entertained folks with our cultural monthly programming, we gave local kids a forum for expressing their talent, we just recently wound up Python programming classes for kids taught by high school seniors...I am sure there’ll be a lot more down the pike ultimately benefiting the lives of underprivileged children in India.
What advice do you have for others who want to get more involved in supporting a good cause?
Follow your heart and pick a cause that speaks to you. The challenge really is in thinking about what you’d like to commit yourself to with all the options available in life. Once you get that out of the way, go for it and just do your best! And it’s always going to be imperfectly perfect, and that’s OK.
You can reach Anu Prabhala or Rajiv Jain, co-chairs of the Akshaya Patra DC chapter at prabhala.anu@gmail.com or rajiv.jain.iit@gmail.com.
