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From India with Love: NGO Brings Hundreds Together to Help Homeless

Arrington Luck

   MCLEAN, VA - Drawn from places as varied as Arizona and London, New
   York and India, hundreds of volunteers last week found themselves in an
   unassuming hotel just outside Washington, joining together near the
   nation's capital to help its homeless.

   Traditional Indian music blared in a wide, low-ceilinged room at the
   bottom of the hotel's spiral stairs. Volunteers flanked long rows of
   narrow tables, whole families joking over piles of supplies as an
   organizer called out encouragement from a stage.

   "How's the josh?" he asked, Hindi for enthusiasm, to cheers from a
   jovial crowd.

   More than 700 people packed shampoo, combs and other basic hygiene
   supplies into kits for distribution to homeless shelters and orphanages
   across the country.

   After three hours, they'd assembled roughly 15,000 packs of hygienic
   supplies.

   Most of the kits will stay in the D.C., area, distributed by eight
   local partners, but nearly 4,500 will make their way back to partners
   in Los Angeles and elsewhere, as event planners return home. Friday's
   event was hosted by Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care (SRLC), an
   India-based nongovernmental organization with roots in Jainism.

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