Akshaya Patra Los Angeles raises $500K at Diwali Gala

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Akshaya Patra Foundation USA’s Los Angeles Chapter raised $500,000 for Mumbai Kitchen at their annual fundraising gala to celebrate Diwali and kick off the holiday season on November 17.

About 400 philanthropic leaders, business executives, socially conscious individuals and youth ambassadors were present at the event.

The event featured a speech by youth ambassador Jahnavi Mehta, who took the initiative to visit a kitchen in India and teach martial arts to children at an Akshaya Patra school in Bangalore.

The highlight of the evening was a musical performance by Samir Date and Dipalee Somaiya Date from Mumbai, India, whose songs got everyone on their feet to dance in front the stage.

The husband and wife duo are known to be Bollywood’s finest playback singers and in fact, Samir has worked with prominent industry figures such as Yash Chopra, Asha Bhosle, Bappi Lahiri, Raam Laxman, Ekta Kapoor and many others.

Akshaya Patra’s mission that “no child should be deprived of an education due to hunger” and aim to feed five million children by 2020.

The organization started in 2000, and today it feeds nutritious hot meals to 1.75 million school children daily in 14,125 schools across 12 states in India.