Current Salem resident Samantha Ganglani was raised in Marblehead by a dad from India and a mom from Tennessee, and her parents instilled her value for education. They also raised her to value volunteerism, as she mentioned they often served at My Brother’s Table every month growing up.
“I was brought up acknowledging that there were people around me who maybe didn’t have all the same abilities or have the same circumstances in life, and we always were taught to help,” she said.
But her first trip to India, when she was in fourth grade, was still a shock to her system in some ways.
“One of the first things I saw was children my age without their parents, taking care of their little, younger siblings and asking for food and asking for money and looking through trash piles,” Ganglani said. “I was so indignant about the fact that this shouldn’t happen. My parents were never not around me, and I had everything I needed, and I just didn’t understand why a kid would not have what they need – especially because sometimes you would see them with their parents, and they did have people who loved them. It was just really shocking to me to see that this existed in the world.”
So when Ganglani stumbled upon an organization which blended the importance of education with feeding hungry Indian children, she felt it was “kismet.”
In her late 20s, Ganglani read about the Boston Chapter of the Akshaya Patra Foundation’s gala in a newsletter, but what piqued her interest was that the event would be hosting Dr. Atul Gawande, an author and doctor at Brigham and Women’s. From there, she looked into the Akshaya Patra Foundation and realized what a “good fit it was for me” and how well the organization aligned with her values.
Ganglani is now in her second year a co-chair of the Boston Chapter, having used the skills she gained from her Marblehead High senior project at Flores Mantilla to get her started with arranging flowers for the annual gala before gradually becoming more involved over the years.
The Akshaya Patra Foundation is the world’s largest nongovernmental organization (NGO) which provides mid-day school lunches to over 2.2 million children in roughly 24,000 schools across India every day. It operates in over half of India’s states, and some of its territories, to bring children off the streets and into classrooms, providing meals as an incentive for them to get an education.
“It’s not rocket science to cook food and give it to a child who’s hungry, but it’s a simple thing, and it can bring these kids out of poverty and into a much better outcome,” Ganglani said. “I know there’s poverty that I can’t solve, but this is something tangible that I can do.
“We have a saying in Akshaya Patra that when you educate a child, you’re actually bringing up a whole family out of poverty because that child is going to be able to support a family – and when you educate a female child, you can bring an entire generation within a family out of poverty because you’ve now made that family more likely to educate its future female children. You’ve basically now created a social movement in that family where there’s an endorsement right in front of us of female equality and community.”
Akshaya Patra’s centralized kitchens are designed with innovation in mind, cooking between 10,000 and 250,000 meals within six hours, while prioritizing efficiency and safety. There are over 9,000 people employed in these kitchens, with more than 30% of the workforce being women.
“Akshaya Patra is able to do a lot of what they do because of their centralized kitchen model. They have engineered mechanisms within the actual setup,” Ganglani said. “They have a multi-story kitchen building. On the top floor, you’ll actually have silos of the grains. Some rice comes from the government; some rice comes straight from donation. That comes down and, using gravity, lands in a wash pot on the second to top floor of the building, and the rice gets washed, and then they pour it down a hole. That actually lands in the pot of steaming water, so the rice gets cooked. It’s super, super efficient.”
In locations where the geographical terrain does not support a centralized kitchen, Akshaya Patra has implemented a decentralized model where local women cook up to 5,000 meals daily. This model provides rural women with a sustainable source of income, helping them break the cycle of poverty.
Ganglani also noted that she has been going to India for her work in the apparel manufacturing business, where she acts as an agent between U.S. brands and Indian factories, for about a decade now.
“Their horizons are widening. Things are becoming more attainable, and that’s what I want to see,” she said. “My dad certainly found his opportunities. I want to be able to spread more opportunities where he came from, and this is definitely something where I know that what I’m doing is what I’m supposed to be doing.”
According to Ganglani, just a $20 donation to Akshaya Patra feeds a child for an entire year, so for anyone looking to really feel the weight of their dollar, “there’s no donation too small.” To learn more about the Akshaya Patra Foundation or to get involved, visit apusa.org.
