Service
Love must express itself as Service
-Sri Sathya Sai Baba
Thursday Dinner Service
We serve breakfast at the Fremont Homeless Shelter every Sunday. This is an acitivity that has been going on for several years probably since the inception of our center. At the same homeless shelter we started dinner service on Thursdays. Members from our center cook and serve hot meals such as Vegetarian Chilli, Veggie Burritos, Rotis and Curry along with a tater tots and cake/cookie to the residents of the homeless shelter. The current occupancy of the shelter is 20 people which is expected to grow to 60 in the coming weeks. The food and service provided by our center members was much appreciated by the residents and Community Outreach Director of the Homeless shelter.
Brown Bag Lunch service for the Unsheltered
As part of the Brown Bag Lunch service activity, 100+ Brown bag lunches are provided to the needy every alternate Saturday in San Francisco Bay area. Each brown bag has a sandwich, fruit, pouch of milk and a breakfast bar. Several families volunteer to create the brown bags with food items and are distributed by volunteers to the homeless in the bay area.
Warming Shelter - Breakfast Service
The Winter Homeless Shelter in Fremont provides shelter for the homeless during the winter every year. In addition to a place to sleep they are provided dinner and breakfast. This year, during the months of February and March, Fremont Sathya Sai Center members provided breakfast at the shelter everyday. Breakfast consisted of sandwiches along with juice, milk, or fruit for 30 people. This was an opportunity for all members of the center along with their family members to participate in the Seva. It was wonderful to see several SSE kids and Young Adults contribute to this seva.
Senior Care Packages
Our Seniors are the hardest hit community by the pandemic. Especially seniors living in low income or housing facilities. Fremont center members created Senior Care Packages with reusable cloth face masks, hand sanitizers and toilet tissues. 125 such care packages were donated to senior shelters in Bay Area.
Dinner at Winter Shelter
Volunteers have an opportunity to serve home-cooked dinner for 40 to 50 homeless people every winter during December at the warming center. Several store-bought supplies like sleeping bags, backpacks, sweatpants and sweatshirts in addition to moderately-used clothing was collected by volunteers and donated to the homeless at the winter shelter.
Wildfire Relief
During the pandemic, California was also hit with major wild fires, impacting several communities near Bay Area. Butte County was significantly impacted rendering several families without homes and basic needs. Center members donated several essential supplies to impacted families.
Scarves for the Homeless
On the 95th birthday of Sri Sathya Sai Baba, 95+ hand knit scarves were donated to the winter shelter for the homeless
SAI Math Academy (SAIMA) provides math, science and coding tutoring to elementary school kids in the Hayward Unified School District. It started in the January of 2018, where a group of volunteers started tutoring mathematics to the kids at one of the elementary schools in Hayward School district. In two years it has grown to 6 elementary school more than 60 volunteers come together to tutor math every Saturday from 9 AM to 11 AM to more that 250 kids. Volunteers are from variety of occupations from Engineers, Working professionals to High School and Middle School kids. Adult volunteers and Young Adult volunteers are also involved in tutoring. It is one activity which gives each one of us joy and satisfaction of giving back to the society. High school and Middle school kids also earn service hours which helps them for their college applications. More details at saivolunteering.org
Front End Workforce Appreciation
During the pandemic while most of us were sheltering at home the front end workforce employees continued to go to work at the risk of being infected. In appreciation of their valuable effort hand written thank you cards along with gift cards were donated to fire stations, hospitals, police, grocery stores, USPS and sanitation workers
Face Masks
Home made reusable cloth masks stitched by center members. 500+ masks were donated to homeless shelters and healthcare workers.
SAInitizer
Home made hand sanitizer was made by enterprising members of the center during initial days of pandemic and distributed to other members in need. An instructional video for creating hand sanitizer at home was made for the benefit of all members
Breakfast Service
Hot breakfast to the homeless at the Fremont shelter has been an ongoing activity for over 20 years on every Sunday morning from 6:30am to 8:30am, where volunteers come together, bring the supplies and cook hot breakfast to the people in home-less shelter from scratch and serve. We serve around 30 to 40 people each Sunday. Adults and kids participate in this activity.
Sandwich Seva
This service activity provides sandwiches to the under privileged and homeless. Happens on third Saturday of every month from 6:30am to 8:00am. Volunteers join together and bring the supplies and make 175+ (veggie and peanut butter) sandwiches. Several children enthusiastically participate in this activity along with their parents.
Habitat for Humanity
Habitat for Humanity is an organization which builds homes for low income people in the community with volunteers participating in various phases of construction of these houses to keep the costs low. Volunteers also build and paint play houses for kids, the proceeds from sale of these playhouses are used towards home construction. Women Volunteers participated in this service activity leading up to the WMR (Women’s Mini Retreat) in 2019.
MedShare
It is a service that started in 2019. MedShare is a humanitarian organization which provides medical supploes to the people who are underserved all around the world and help in improving their lives. As MedShare volunteers we sort and repackage medical supplies and equipment.