A non-governmental organisation has landed in the city to redistribute unwanted food to the needy at 22 local ‘hunger points.’
‘No Food Waste,’ founded in October 2014 by Padmanaban A.Gopalan, M.Sudhakar and M.Dinesh has fed 23,3087 people and recovered 78,000 kg of food (worth ₹ 93,23,480) since its inception. Though it is based in Coimbatore, it serves in Chennai, Pollachi, Erode and Salem. It has centres in Delhi NCR, Tadepalligudem (Andhra Pradesh) and Ahmedabad (Gujarat) also.
Corporation Commissioner N.Ravichandran inaugurated the facility at Dr. Madan Kumar gym campus on Butterworth Road on Sunday. It distributed 100 meal packets to poor people to mark its inauguration. It has diverted unused food from a marriage hall at Vayalur to 400 people within days of its opening.
Its co-founder and executive director Mr. Dinesh said the facility given by the Corporation would be used to store vessels and park vehicles.
“We have 75 to 80 local volunteers and other social welfare organisations. We seek funds from companies from their Corporate Social Responsibility projects to meet our operational costs.” It takes around ₹18,000 - 20,000 to run the service a month per chapter, he added.
The NGO operates a centralised helpline to accept call from people who have excess food (to serve over 50 people) to donate. Once a call is received, the respective chapter’s district coordinators dispatch a team to check the quality of the food and repack it in vessels. After the meals are packed, the food is transported to ‘hunger spots’ – places that are known to be frequented by the needy and homeless.
“We have now got an Android app that lets the public add hunger spots also,” he said.
It accepts any kind of food, raw, cooked, packaged, hot or cold. More information may be had from www.nofoodwaste.in and by calling the helpline 9087790877.
