Renowned personalities from the Indian-American community and their friends raised over $400,000 for Covid-19 relief in India via Goonj last week in a fund-raising event. Goonj is an NGO in India. It is a partner of ChaloGive for India, which is an ongoing fund-raising effort by Indispora.
The NYC fundraiser campaign was named Kindred Kitchen -hosted jointly by philanthropic organisations Indiaspora and 1 Billion Breaths. Some of the most prominent Indian restaurants in the world led the campaign.
“Kindred Kitchen presented a new opportunity for Indiaspora to continue raising awareness and funds for Covid relief in India, especially as the need continues to shift from the cities to more villages, and livelihood and food insecurity are a growing concern,” MR Rangaswami, the founder of Indiaspora, was quoted as saying.
“We are so grateful for the continued outpouring of support for our Covid relief efforts. To date, the Indian diaspora has given nearly $10 million for Covid relief efforts through our ChaloGive.org platform and other initiatives, such as Help India Breathe with life purpose coach ay Shetty, Help Tamil Nadu Breathe, and now Kindred Kitchen,” he added.
Other speakers at the event included author Suketu Mehta, well-known lawyer Preet Bharara, and documentary filmmaker, activist, entrepreneur and former Miss America Nina Davuluri.
“We’re the richest, best-educated, highest achieving community in America. We need to stretch out a hand to the country our ancestors or we came from. Like the hands coming out of the trains in Bombay,” Mehta said during the dinner.
“Following the global restaurant campaign we established with 1 Billion Breaths, I felt the best way to continue supporting Covid relief efforts in India was through a more intimate event where people could connect with each other, and India, through home-cooked recipes,” Basu Ratnam — NYC restaurateur and owner of INDAY eateries in Manhattan, who co-hosted Kindred Kitchen, said.
“We had overwhelming interest and were able to pull together some of the most interesting names in our diaspora. I’m humbled and energised by the support and will use it as a foundation to keep building our community,” he added.
Several celebrities contributed recipes for the dinner, including model, author and TV host Padma Lakshmi, actor Mindy Kaling, chef and author Nik Sharma, food writer Priya Krishna, and wife of the late Floyd Cardoz, Barkha Cardoz.
