This Article is From Nov 21, 2016

Bengaluru Restaurant Offers Free Food To City's Homeless

The restaurant keeps surplus food from its kitchen and buffet in a fridge outside its outlet.

Bengaluru: Mouth-watering chicken shawarma, lip-smacking dal, rice, fresh fruits and water kept in a refrigerator for everyone to eat and drink for free.  A Lebanese restaurant named Byblos in Bangalore took upon itself to feed hungry homeless people in the city.

In a country that tops the world hunger list according to UN's State of Food Insecurity in the World-2015 report and is home to 194 million undernourished people, this is a novel concept.

The restaurant keeps surplus food from its kitchen and buffet in a fridge outside its outlet for underprivileged people. The initiative called the "Fridge of kindness" is open from noon till the restaurant closes around midnight, more than 20 underprivileged people pick up food from the fridge on a daily basis.

The idea is the brain child of Ammar Molki, head chef of the restaurant. Mr Molki, who hails from Syria says the civil war back home has made him understand the pain of hunger and with this initiative he wants to help eradicate it.

Rotary Bangalore team helped him by providing the refrigerator. "In the end, we are human beings, we should help each other, we shouldn't always say the government should do that, the government should help. We should do something from our side. In the end, when you do good work, you will get good," said Chef Molki.

The initiative has been on for more than a month and the chef plans to continue it as long as it is possible. More organisations are now campaigning for similar initiatives to fight hunger.

Meanwhile, some kind customers at the restaurant are doing their bit by buying food and leaving it inside the fridge apart from the extra food kept by the restaurant for the underprivileged in the vicinity.

"There are so many times where we have a lot of excess food and there's really no purpose for it, but if we are able to use this for a greater cause, then I think it's absolutely fantastic. It's a wonderful idea," said Shevaan, a customer at the restaurant.
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