Supreme Sikh Society of New Zealand operating from Shri Kalgidhar Sahib Takanini Gurudwara has once again come to the rescue thousands of individuals and families by offering free food bags in Alert Level 3.

The massive need in the community was evident witnessing hundreds of cars queuing for over a kilometre in South Auckland towards Takanini Gurudwara to pick up food bags and masks.

Takanini Gurudwara in its previous drives during the first set of lockdowns earlier this year served more than 50,000 families over several days of food distribution drive, not just in South Auckland but through to Tauranga, North Shore, West Auckland and Waikato.

Ever since the Alert Level 3 was announced in Auckland almost two weeks ago, people have once again gone into the spiral of being out of work thereby running short of money to buy food and essentials to support their families.

A team of 50 individuals from the gurudwara who were given essential support volunteers ID card worked six hours shift at a time to arrange, sort, pack and place the food bags in the gurudwara premises to be given to the needy.

A flawless-contactless arrangement was made by the team where volunteers direct the vehicles in the queue from the Takanini School Road inside the gate where another group of volunteers clad in PPEs and positioned at distanced spots cue the drivers to unlock the boot of the vehicle or open the rear door themselves and place the food bags.

This process of streamlining the whole process from packing of all essential items to handing it over to the visitors was done professionally and no contact was made with the visitor in any manner.

Speaking to the Indian Weekender, Supreme Sikh Society of New Zealand’s president Daljit Singh said on Wednesday, August 19 and Sunday, August 23 over 4000 food parcels were prepared and given to visitors in over 2000 cars thereby feeding thousands of families.

“Before restarting the food bags distribution drive, we distributed over 2000 blankets from Supreme Sikh Society in the last few weeks, and we have one another free food bags drive on Wednesday, August 26,” Daljit Singh said.

Supreme Sikh Society has been lauded by not one but several government bodies, communities and community organisations, the Indian High Commission and several other local and national government departments for its service towards the community in need especially in the last six months as the country was entangled with lockdowns, job losses, business closures etc.

“In Sikhism, we believe in serving humanity irrespective of faith, religious beliefs, ethnicities and we are trying our level best, in whatever capacity we can to practice those teachings of Guru Nanak Dev and in fact, we feel privileged and blessed with this honour to serve our communities in New Zealand," Mr Singh added.

Supreme Sikh Society of NZ president Daljit Singh