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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhen Disasters Hit California, Sikh Temples Provide Meals and Refuge
At a Sacramento gurdwara, Amarjit Singh dishes up food to a family forced to evacuate under the treat of a catastrophic dam spillway collapse in 2017. ZUMA PRESS INC/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Sikhs statewide have organized to feed their fellow Californians in crisis.
BY TERESA MATHEW JANUARY 2, 2020
ON A CLEAR FALL MORNING earlier last year, Kashmir Shahi received an urgent call from the Salvation Army. The organization wanted to know if he would be able to provide food for over 700 people at a Santa Rosa shelter who had been displaced due to the Kincade Fire burning through Californias Sonoma County.
They called me at 11 a.m., Shahi remembers. They needed the food at 4 p.m. I live in Union City, and Santa Rosa is an hour and a half drive from there. They asked if it was possible and I said, We will make it happen.
Shahi is a member of the Gurdwara Sahib of Fremont, a Sikh temple in Northern California. He immediately put out word to his congregation, and other members assembled to prepare food in the gurdwaras kitchen. That afternoon they drove rice, beans, bananas, cake, chips, and oranges up to hundreds of hungry evacuees.
It was hardly the first time Shahi and the broader Sikh community have mobilized to help victims of Californias natural disasters. Ive been doing this since 2009, Shahi says. I know what it takes to do that much food.
FULL story: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/california-disaster-relief
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When Disasters Hit California, Sikh Temples Provide Meals and Refuge (Original Post)
Omaha Steve
Jan 2020
OP
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)1. Feed 700 people on five hours notice: "I know what it takes"
Outstanding. In disaster situations, religious congregations are uniquely situated to provide this kind of assistance.
Responsible religious groups understand this is part of the deal for their tax exempt status, and thousands of them all across the country do just that.
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)2. The Sikhs are awesome.
Aristus
(66,531 posts)3. My respect for Sikhs and Sikhism knows no bounds.
tinrobot
(10,927 posts)4. I've spent a lot of time with Sikhs, they are really good people.
Sadly, they are often targeted because they wear turbans.
abqtommy
(14,118 posts)5. I've always admired the Sikhs ever since I met my first ones in West Pakistan between 1952
and 1955.
onecaliberal
(33,016 posts)6. This is what people who are actually practicing faith do.