The real joy during a festival is when you share things with others. True to this dictum, members running the ’Pagirndhu Unn’ community refrigerator at Gandhi Park distributed dresses and sweets to needy people on Saturday, ahead of Deepavali.
Speaking to ‘News Today,’ Geetha Kumar, who along with her college batch-mates (1976) installed the community refrigerator, said she wanted everyone to celebrate the festival of lights and contributed from her side.
“We gave around 60 sarees, 50 lungis and towels along with jhangri to the people. Since we are eco-friendly, we avoided giving crackers,” she added.
She further said the ’Pagirndhu Unn‘ initiative will complete its first year 9 November and an event will be held in December to commemorate this feat.
Talking about the ‘Pagirndhu Unn‘ initiative, Geetha said, “I have always been inclined towards serving society. Once, when my friends and I were casually chatting about issues of social concerns, one of my batch-mates planted this idea of setting up a community fridge. After countless hours of discussion and meetings with the Municipal Commissioner, we finally decided to set up a public fridge in Tambaram.”
The public fridge was inaugurated by Tambaram Municipal Commissioner K Krishnamurthy 9 November 2017 and, since then, has seen overwhelming response from eateries and public in terms of food donation.
“The fridge is open from 7 am to 9 pm every day. Only vegetarian food is allowed. I place 50 food packets every afternoon. I prepare the food at home. A watchman is employed to ensure proper distribution of food and to consider other safety aspects,” she said.
“We are also planning to distribute food in plates instead of packets. We have donors to contribute; if there is no one we will fund it ourselves,” said Geetha.
Geetha Kumar can be reached at 90031 06791.