BGR Offers Emergency Assistance during the Pandemic

By BGR Staff

In May 2021, BGR donated over $60,000 from our emergency funds to support communities, both globally and in the U.S., adversely impacted by the Covid pandemic. Most of our assistance has gone to organizations working in India, which has been hit especially hard by the pandemic.

In May 2021, BGR donated over $60,000 from our emergency funds to support communities, both globally and in the U.S., adversely impacted by the Covid pandemic. Most of our assistance has gone to organizations working in India, which has been hit especially hard by the pandemic.

BGR began its emergency assistance to India on May 6^th with a donation of $6,000 divided as follows among four organizations:

• $2,000 to CARE India, to provide essential hospital services, health workers, beds, oxygen supply, and more.
• $2,000 to the International Medical Corps, which is working with its partners in India to meet the most urgent health needs, including medical supplies, personal protective equipment, sanitation, and hygiene supplies.
• $1,000 to Ketto, a fund-raising platform in Mumbai, to purchase oxygen concentrators.
• $1,000 to Akshaya Patra Foundation, which is providing food to thousands of needy people across India.

Shortly after making this donation, BGR received an extremely generous donation from an individual donor in the amount of $20,000, for which we are deeply grateful. This was distributed to five organizations, in the amount of $4,000 each. The five beneficiaries were:

• UNICEF-USA,  the US branch of the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund, to ensure that children around the world are vaccinated against Covid-19.
• World Food Program USA, to provide urgently needed food aid to Yemen and the Central African Republic.
• CARE India, for emergency medical relief, in addition to the $2,000 given earlier.
• Akshaya Patra Foundation, for food assistance, in addition to the $1,000 given earlier.
• Cambodian League for Promotion of Human Rights (LICADHO), to provide food and hygiene supplies to women and their young children in Cambodian prisons.

On May 16^th the BGR Board decided to donate an additional $1,000 to UNICEF-USA, the World Food Program USA, and LICADHO, to bolster their donations to $5,000 each. CARE India and Akshaya Patra had already received additional funding under our earlier donation.

At its meeting on May 16^th, the Board agreed to provide $2,500 in emergency assistance to the Karuna Trust, a social service organization in Sri Lanka, to provide parcels of dry food rations to poor families left desperate and hungry because of the pandemic.

The Board also decided to offer a donation of $5,000 to UNRWA-USA, the U.S. branch of the UN relief agency assisting Palestinian refugees. The organization is currently providing shelter, food assistance, health care, and other life-enhancing programs to Palestinians in Gaza left hungry and often homeless on account of the recent Israeli air raids.

In mid-May, Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi wrote to his friend, Ven. Bhante Ananda, general secretary of the Maha Bodhi Society, Bengaluru, to inquire about the condition of the monastery in Bengaluru, where he taught in 2019. The Maha Bodhi Maitri Mandala, the humanitarian service wing of the Maha Bodhi Society, operates a hospital in Bengaluru. Bhante Ananda wrote back to Ven. Bodhi to inform him that the hospital desperately needed five ventilators, each costing almost $10,000. They had received funds from supporters in Switzerland for one ventilator, but needed funds for the other four.

Ven. Bodhi proposed that BGR provide funds for a ventilator; a donation of $10,000 from the Buddhist Association of the United States (BAUS) to BGR enabled us to cover the costs of a second ventilator. Ven. Bodhi requested his publisher, Wisdom Publications, to donate for a third ventilator. And Indian Buddhists living in the greater New York area offered to raise funds for the fourth ventilator. In this way, by May 21^st, the Mahabodhi Maitri Mandala had acquired the funds needed to purchase the four ventilators, which would be used to preserve the lives of their hospital patients.

Finally, on May 19^th, BGR provided an emergency donation of $2,500 to the Foundation of His Sacred Majesty, an organization in India that renders services to the poor, deserving, and needy section of the Indian population without distinctions of caste, creed, race, sex, or religion. The Foundation urgently required outside assistance to help provide Covid relief.

In addition to these international donations, BGR continues to provide a monthly contribution of $3,000 to Feeding America, an umbrella organization supporting U.S. food banks, and a $500 monthly donation to the food program of Empty Cloud Monastery in West Orange, New Jersey.

As much as we lament the devastation that the Covid pandemic has brought to so many communities around the world, and the grief it has inflicted on countless families that have lost loved ones, we feel privileged to be able to offer tangible relief in the form of food supplies and medical aid and thereby save the lives of people who might have otherwise succumbed to illness or despair. We thank all of our donors for making this assistance possible, and we hope they rejoice in the good they make possible through their generosity.