Hyderabad: Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a second-year B.Tech student from Hyderabad is serving home-cooked food to COVID-19 patients in home quarantine at their doorsteps in the city.
Belonging to a family of 27 doctors, Sneha Srirampur said she began the initiative with her friends and charged nominal charges for food. But with an intention to serve food for free, she started her ‘Ashirwad food service’ along with her family on May 17 this year. She said that she has delivered 400 plates of food so far.
Explaining about her inspiration, Sneha told ANI, “Doctors are the ones who stand in the frontline to save the lives of people, even setting aside their families for service. Especially during this pandemic, it’s not just doctors who have worked day in and day out, but also the police officers, the municipality workers, and all the frontline workers. All these people made sure that the people are safe. These people have inspired me to do something for those who are suffering during this pandemic.”
She said that her friends and family members promoted the free food service on social media platforms.
In order to run the free food service, Sneha pointed out that her family members have also provided her financial help.
She mentioned funds which she received from several people, especially doctors who stay abroad. She has been getting the support of various NGOs and online food delivery platforms to help her with the delivery.
“Food delivery that takes place through various NGOs are fully free of cost and when the food is being delivered by online food delivery platforms, it is just charged nominally with just the delivery charge,” she said adding that the delivery charges thus collected are used to feed the poor and needy outside various hospitals and footpaths on weekends.
She also distributes food to police officers who were posted at various check posts in the city.
Triveni, the mother of Sneha said that she is very proud of her daughter along with her brothers who have stepped forward to help others and promised support to all her endeavors to serve humanity.