Support for the Village

First published on: 27^th April 2020

Cause for celebration

In the middle of April 2020, the Elizabeth-Ann Charity sent a donation of £1000 to Vinay and Benedicta to enable them to buy food for the villagers of Burlavaripalem and Barrypuram who had no work during the pandemic and no income to buy essentials. A further donation of £1000 was sent in the middle of May.

Having obtained government permission to distribute food they consulted the villagers about their needs. (The government was already providing some rice.)

Then they went shopping for 275kg onions, huge quantities of dal, wheat flour, chilli powder, washing soap and eggs.
At night they visited the market to buy fresh produce to complete their project. They bought tomatoes, bringal and chillies.

Following that they packed the dal and flour into family size bundles and the next day the food was distributed to the villagers, observing social distancing at all times.

On 17^th May Vinay and Benedicta wrote, "This morning we distributed 12 essential food items to the villagers. We obtained permission from the government.
"We started the distribution at 7:30 am and for the next 3 hours we were all busy.
"For the last 5 days we got up at 4 o'clock and went to the market and shops to get necessary items like oil, chilli powder, wheat flour in the bulk. Then we weighed and packed them into small packets.
"This morning we got up by 2 o'clock in the mid night and bought 4 types vegetables. Villagers asked us to give fish instead of dal, so we bought 270 big fish.
"By God's grace everything went on well. We thank Lord Jesus for His wonderful provision. We also thank you and all those who contributed for this lock down period distribution.
"These are the items we gave: oil, wheat, flour, chilli powder, big fish, salt, brinjal, onions, tomatoes, ridge goad, ivy goad, coriander powder cucumber.
"All the villagers were very happy as they could cook fish on Sunday afternoon after a long time.
"Thank you once again for your love and support."