Akshaya Patra To Hold Food For Education Benefit Event

PRLog (Press Release) - Oct. 7, 2011 - Stoneham, MA - The Akshaya Patra Foundation, a Massachusetts based organization with the vision that no child shall be deprived of education because of hunger, will host a benefit event on November 11th at the W Atlanta Midtown, Atlanta, GA. The event will raise funds for Akshaya Patra’s unique and innovative program for fighting hunger and promoting education simultaneously. Currently, the program feeds 1.3 million children DAILY in over 8,000 schools through 18 kitchens in eight states in India. For many children this is their only complete meal for the day. The benefit will be attended by key community leaders, business executives and eminent change agents committed to unlock these children from the vicious and perpetual cycle of poverty and determined to closing the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

“By attending and supporting this worthy cause, they are greatly enhancing the significance of our collective challenge to provide the poor and the less fortunate equitable access to food, education, jobs and healthcare and harness the wealth of human potential,” said Madhu Sridhar, President and CEO of Akshaya Patra USA. This inaugural event is being co-chaired by area residents Rajan Palaniswamy, Rakesh Chauhan, Anil Khatod, Dr. Anand Lalaji, Harish Mamtani, Ham Naran, and Dr. Pradeep Sinha.

N. R. Narayana Murthy, the keynote speaker, is the Founder of Infosys Limited, a global software consulting company headquartered in Bangalore, India. He founded Infosys in 1981. Under his leadership, Infosys was the first Indian company listed on NASDAQ in 1999. The Economist ranked Narayana Murthy among the ten most-admired global business leaders in 2005. He has been awarded the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India, the Légion d’honneur by the Government of France, and the CBE by the British government. He is the first Indian winner of the Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur Of The Year award and the Max Schmidheiny Liberty prize, and has appeared in the rankings of businessmen and innovators published by India Today, Business Standard, Forbes, BusinessWeek, Time, CNN, Fortune, and Financial Times. Mr. Murthy is a staunch supporter of Akshaya Patra and it’s mission to eradicate hunger and promote education for the most deserving children in India.

About Akshaya Patra
The Akshaya Patra Foundation is one of the world’s largest NGO-run midday meal programs. A public-private partnership, Akshaya Patra combines good management, innovative technology and smart engineering to deliver school lunch at a fraction of the cost of similar programs in other parts of the world. It costs Akshaya Patra only $15 to feed a child for an entire year. This meal gives these children an incentive to come to school, stay in school and provides them with the necessary nutrients they need to develop their cognitive abilities to focus on learning. The organization also sources its food stocks from local markets, thereby reducing costs associated with transportation and food spoilage while supporting the local economy.

In a short time, the foundation has grown to become the largest, and certainly most innovative, school lunch program in the world. Akshaya Patra is a great example of what can be accomplished when the public sector, private sector and the civic society collaborate-- a cost effective, scalable solution with high quality service delivery. After reaching its initial goal of feeding one million children each school day, Akshaya Patra’s next milestone is to serve 5 million children daily by 2020.
 
President Obama in his congratulatory note to Akshaya Patra wrote, “Your use of efficient and innovative business practices to scale up in just a few years from feeding 1,500 school children daily to almost a million is a powerful demonstration of what's possible when people work together.”  

To learn more about Akshaya Patra please visit www.foodforeducation.org.


For more information about this event please contact Madhu Sridhar at 781-438-3090, email tapf.info@akshayapatrausa.org