TIRUPATI: Apple Homes, a Hyderabad-based NGO, is spreading its wings to Andhra Pradesh to keep the State hunger-free.
The move, according to the NGO’s founder Dr Neelima Arya, is to set up food banks under its ‘Feed the Need’ plan, an initiative that is popular in its home city, where it has established 35 such banks, in association with the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation.
The NGO has set up its first food bank at Tirupati Railway Station to feed the destitute and others. “We started our food bank on December 21, 2021, coinciding with Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s birthday, with an objective of transforming AP into a hunger-free State,” Arya, who feels ‘no one deserves to go to bed on an empty stomach’, told TNIE.
The food bank was established at the request of Tirupati MP M Gurumoorthy. The NGO is now planning to set up at least one food bank each in all 175 Assembly segments in AP.
“A sum of Rs 7.5 lakh is required for setting up a food bank in a permanent structure with a refrigerator, unlike the temporary structures we have in Hyderabad,” Arya said.
Apple Homes planning to set up another food bank
The philanthropist said the bank at the railway station has been feeding 300 to 500 hungry stomachs a day. “We collect leftover food from restaurants, and halls holding functions. The Akshaya Patra Foundation has been donating food on every alternate day to at least 150 persons,” she added.
Arya said she hoped more people took part in her initiative and came forward to help set up more food banks in the State.
Besides the food bank, the NGO is also planning another initiative, “She Needs.” “We would like to introduce sanitary vending kiosks close to food banks with the help of donors,” she said. Apple Homes is now planning to set up another food bank at SVR Ruia Hospital.