The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) is doing its bit to combat world hunger by providing free meals to the needy. For the past two decades, ISKCON's Hare Krishna Food for Life programme has served more than 75 million hot, nutritious vegetarian meals throughout Asia, Africa, Australia and Europe.

In 1966, Srila Prabhupada began the Hare Krishna's famous "Sunday feast" at ISKCON's fledgling Second Avenue temple in New York. The elderly swami personally helped cook and serve the the feasts.

Word of this delicious, free, 10 course meal spread quickly and it soon was attended by 300 to 400 people each week. As ISKCON expanded, the Sunday Feast became a weekly event in major cities world-wide. Wherever an ISKCON temple was built, prasadam feasts would also take place.

Srila Prabhupada often referred to the Hare Krishna movement as the "Kitchen religion". The Sunday feasts formed the basis for the current Food for Life programme. In the 1970's, ISKCON expanded its vision of prasadam distribution and developed the Hare Krishna Food for Life programme for larger food distribution to the less fortunate.

In many cities special food distribution vehicles were purchased and daily delivery routes to low-income areas began. Today, the programme distributes tens of thousands of free meals every day to the needy people in St Petersburg in Russia, Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Sydney in Australia, London in England, Bombay and 150 cities world-wide.

Without doubt, Food for Life's best efforts were realized during the recent conflict in Grozny and since March 1995, Food for Life has been at work in Chechnya.

A New York Times article (December 12,1995) stated : "Here in (Chechnya) they have a reputation like the one Mother Teresa has in Culcutta. It is not hard finding people to swear they are saints"