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By Prabhupada-priya Dasi and Guru Gauranga Das<\/p>\n
On March 11, 2020 the University of Florida (UF) suspended on-campus classes and urged students to go home in light of public health concerns related to COVID-19. Several days later, ISKCON Gainesville (also known as \u201cKrishna House\u201d) suspended operation of its \u201cKrishna Lunch\u201d program.<\/p>\n
Racking their brains to find a way to keep \u201cKrishna Lunch\u201dgoing in conformity with public health guidelines, Krishna House president Srutisagara Das and his management team devised a \u201cKrishna Lunch To Go Only\u201d program. Shortly thereafter, work began on a novel plan to deliver Krishna Lunch to local hospitals where healthcare professionals heroically treat patients infected with the COVID-19 virus. <\/p>\n
Called \u201cKrishna Lunch for Healthcare Heroes,\u201d the program was formally launched on April 2, 2020 (Rama Navami). A number of congregational members promptly stepped up to offer much needed financial support to get the new program off the ground. <\/p>\n
Originally established at UF under the direction of ISKCON Founder-Acharya His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the Krishna Lunch program served its first free vegetarian meal in 1971 and has continued serving Krishna Lunch (also known as prasadam<\/em>, or Krishna\u2019s mercy) on UF class days ever since (see Everything You Should Know About Krishna Lunch at UF<\/a>). That\u2019s because Krishna Lunch is the way Krishna devotees share their love with UF and Gainesville.<\/p>\n Back in 1971, Swami Prabhupada gave his disciples the following instruction:<\/p>\n \u201c[D]o something wonderful there in Gainesville. Wonderful means simply chant [Hare Krishna] loudly and distribute prasadam.<\/em> That is not very difficult. It is very easy. Simply if you do it enthusiastically and sincerely, then success will be there. (Letter from Srila Prabhupada to Bhakta Bill dated June 29, 1971)<\/p>\n This seminal instruction by Srila Prabhupada has been the \u201cheart and soul\u201d of Krishna House ever since. <\/p>\n Currently, about 25 devotees in their early 20s live at Krishna House. Some are UF students, and others are full-time novice devotees (bhaktas)<\/em>. In addition to performing their daily spiritual practices (sadhana)<\/em> and temple service (seva)<\/em>, these devotees have been putting in hundreds of hours each week prepping, cooking and serving \u201cKrishna Lunch\u201d to about 1,000 UF students each day. <\/p>\n On March 31, Krishna House devotees started \u201cKrishna Lunch for Healthcare Heroes.\u201d The first day\u2019s menu consisted of a potato and chickpea vegetable in tomato masala<\/em> sauce, basmati rice, salad with Krishna House\u2019s vaunted almond dressing and an apple cinnamon halwa<\/em> desert. By noon of \u201cDay 1,\u201d the Krishna House van was loaded and on its way to make deliveries to local hospital emergency rooms and intensive care units. <\/p>\n Krishna House has also launched a digital platform through which any physician, nurse, therapist, hospital technician, administrator or employee can directly order a free lunch for delivery. Whoever coined the saying \u201cthere\u2019s no such thing as a free lunch\u201d wasn\u2019t a healthcare hero enjoying Krishna Lunch in Gainesville!<\/p>\n For those who would like to order or donate, please visit https:\/\/krishnalunch.com\/supportourheroes<\/a>. For those eager to start a \u201cKrishna Lunch for Healthcare Heroes\u201d program, please contact Srutisagara Das at srutidas108@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Racking their brains to find a way to keep \u201cKrishna Lunch\u201d going in conformity with public health guidelines, Krishna House president Srutisagara Das and his management team devised a \u201cKrishna Lunch To Go Only\u201d program. Shortly thereafter, work began on a novel plan to deliver Krishna Lunch to local hospitals where healthcare professionals heroically treat patients infected with the COVID-19 virus. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84253","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=84253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/OST1xqQ.jpg)
By Prabhupada-Priya Dasi and Guru Gauranga Das<\/strong><\/p>\n