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By Bhakti devi dasi<\/strong><\/p>\n In the week leading up to Janmastami 2014 and over its 2 day festivities, several politicians, from both local and state level, visited ISKCON\u2019s Melbourne Mahaprabhu Mandir, Australia.<\/p>\n The reason for these visits was to present our kitchen facilities in their need for upgrading and expansion, for which architectural plans have been approved and an application for a $750,000 government grant has been submitted.<\/p>\n Hare Krishna Food for Life has been distributing sanctified food to the poor and needy of Melbourne through the Temple and various other outlets such as Crossways, for over thirty years. There are opportunities to expand these services by duplicating outlets similar to Crossways Food For Life in Swanston St, Melbourne, which serves everyone, yet specifically targets the needy, students (both local and international, especially Indian students), the unemployed and pensioners.<\/p>\n Plans are also underway to partner with local councils to provide nutritious vegetarian meals to persons who are house-bound, or of restricted access, through a meals-on-wheels style program. These meals will be cooked at the Temple kitchen and then distributed by volunteers both from local councils and Bhakti-Vriksa groups.<\/p>\n On Friday 8th<\/sup> August, Victoria\u2019s State Premier, the honourable Dr. Denis Napthine arrived, along with the Liberal Party\u2019s Minister for Planning and Multicultural Affairs Matthew Guy and Shannon Eeles the new Liberal candidate for Albert Park, the Melbourne suburb where our temple is located. After partaking of hot Chai and carob cupcakes in Temple President Aniruddha dasa\u2019s office, they enjoyed a tour of Srila Prabhupada\u2019s room, Temple grounds, Temple room and prasadam meals hall. All were overwhelmed with the peaceful beauty of the premises as well as the gorgeous deities of Sri Sri Radha Ballabha, Gaura Nitai and Jagannatha, Baladeva and Subhadra mayi, footage of which was later broadcast to millions of viewers on the evening news.<\/p>\n This is the first time that a Victorian State Premier has visited the temple. The hon. Dr. Denis Napthine stated how he had a beautiful spiritual experience, and again re-iterated this at a later function which he and ISKCON Communications director for Australia Bhakta dasa attended.<\/p>\n The total cost of the kitchen renovations is estimated to be in the vicinity of $2.2 million, and after explanation of how many meals are prepared from the kitchen in its current state (over 5000 per week), they understood the urgency of the project, especially with the aim of opening at least another 2 facilities like Crossways, which currently services 300-400 guests per day in a 3 hour lunch period. <\/p>\n Because the Premier was suitably impressed with the Food for Life meals distribution efforts of Melbourne devotees, Minister Matthew Guy confided that there will definitely be a grant coming our way to aid with the upgrade\u2019s financial burden and that next year, they hope to return to partake of a prasadam meal from our new kitchen facilities.<\/p>\n A week later Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition<\/b><\/strong> the hon. Michael Danby and State Labor Member for Albert Park Martin Foley visited on Sunday 17th<\/sup> August. These VIP guests were hosted in the newly renovated dining room.<\/p>\n Approximately 5000 people attended the adhi-vasa festivities that day. Martin Foley, on behalf of the Victorian State Opposition leader stated that whatever the current Liberal government would pledge to upgrade the kitchen facilities, the Labor Party will match if they are elected to government in November this year. They were amazed with the organization of so many activities and genuinely enjoyed their time at the Temple.<\/p>\n The Consul General of India, Melbourne, Ms Manika Jain was the first of our VIPs to visit Melbourne Mandir on the auspicious day of Janmastami 18th<\/sup> August 2014. This committed vegetarian enquired if there were any eggs in the cake, to which we replied that it would not be Krishna Prasadam if there were.<\/p>\n Director at Office of Multicultural Affairs & Citizenship, Hakan Akyol, also came and was impressed with the truly multicultural nature of our community at the Temple.<\/p>\n Amidst the evening crowds of approximately 8000 Vaisnavas, the former Victorian Premier, the honourable Ted Baillieu visited the Melbourne Hare Krishna Temple once again on Janmastami this year, as he did last year, this time together with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier Craig Ondarchie, and Shannon Eeles (Liberal Candidate for Albert Park), who later personally gave a sizeable donation to the deities.<\/p>\n During their tour of the premises Craig Ondarchie was truly awestruck when he felt the presence of a \u201cgreat saintly person\u201d on entering Srila Prabhupada\u2019s room. Later, during the children\u2019s drama performance of Akshaya-Patra (the inexhaustible vessel), Craig was impressed with the happy disposition and spiritual fervour of the children.<\/p>\n In the Temple Room, the hon. Ted Baillieu joined in the chanting with raised arms and later in the evening gave a wonderful speech stating that our ISKCON Melbourne community truly represents the essence of Multicultural Victoria.<\/p>\n All in all, it was a very successful Janmastami. Srila Prabhupada\u2019s desire was for scholarly, intelligent and important people to visit our temples and become aware of the importance of Krishna Consciousness. Now that Melbourne Mandir\u2019s guest reception and dining rooms have been renovated, we aim to fulfil that desire and increase the visits of dignitaries and VIPs.<\/p>\n \n<\/p>\n Article by: Bhakti devi dasi, ISKCON Communications Executive Secretary, bhaktidd@optusnet.com.au<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the week leading up to Janmastami 2014 and over its 2 day festivities, several politicians, from both local and state level, visited ISKCON\u2019s Melbourne Mahaprabhu Mandir, Australia. The reason for these visits was to present our kitchen facilities in their need for upgrading and expansion, for which architectural plans have been approved and an application for a $750,000 government grant has been submitted. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iskcon-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13065"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13277,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13065\/revisions\/13277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Hare](\"http:\/\/dandavats.com\/wp-content\/uploads4\/2014-09-01_09-14-49.jpg\")
By Bhakti devi dasi<\/strong><\/p>\n