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Current Efforts
Loaves and Fishes - Hygiene Drive
Cataract Surgery Sponsorships
Cataracts are a life-changing condition. They rob the afflicted person of their sight, and prevent them from completing even the most simple of tasks. Millions of individuals around the world suffer from cataracts, and many of these people can't afford the surgery required to repair their vision.
In January of 2021, Happy Healthy Us was able to sponsor life-changing cataract surgeries for ten individuals living in poverty in India. We partnered with Janta Sewa hospital in Varanasi, India to provide these 10 people with cataract surgeries completely free of charge. A few of the patients were generous enough to provide details about their lives and how their cataracts had impacted them. If you'd like to read their stories, please go to www.happyhealthyus.org/blog to check them out!
Happy Healthy Us continues to foster a relationship with Janta Sewa hospital, and we intend to sponsor more surgeries in the near future.
Doorways Support - Ongoing
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Doorways is a housing center for people suffering from HIV in St. Louis, Missouri. The coronavirus pandemic has hit Doorways and its clients especially hard. Many people suffering from HIV become immunocompromised, so they are at especially high risk when it comes to COVID-19. Because of this, Doorways' mission of keeping people suffering from HIV safe has become even more difficult.
Happy Healthy Us is currently working to support Doorways by providing much needed materials to the housing center. In November, we partnered with Seoul Taco, a local St. Louis restaurant, and ran a successful fundraiser. We also leveraged our connections with the generous St. Louis community to run a linen drive. More details about both of these initiatives can be found below.
Doorways' website can be found here: www.doorwayshousing.org.
Seoul Taco Fundraiser
Poster Credit: Vivian Gao
Seoul Taco is a Midwest based restaurant chain that is very popular in St. Louis. Originally a food truck, Seoul Taco has grown to four casual restaurants in Chicago and St. Louis.
Seoul Taco's website can be found here: www.seoultaco.com
This November, Happy Healthy Us was able to partner with Seoul Taco to conduct a night of fundraising for the Doorways support initiative. The money raised from the fundraiser will be dedicated to our full donation to Doorways in mid-December.
Linen Drive
Poster Credit: Vivian Gao
Another effort to support Doorways was our linen drive. When we reached out to Doorways, we were told that linens were among the most important items for them.
A special thanks to all of those who donated. If you feel that you missed your chance, you can always donate to Doorways through the link pasted above!
Dupage Pads Support- 8/4/2020
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In August, Happy Healthy Us was able to support a local homeless shelter, Dupage Pads.
Pads is an organization dedicated to housing the homeless.
In response to the Coronavirus pandemic, Pads has transitioned to an expanded interim housing model, housing hundreds of people in hotels across Dupage county (in Illinois). Pads has also taken on the responsibility of providing packaged meals to feed the people they house every week.
We were once again able to draw on some incredibly generous people in our community to make this donation. The pandemic has been especially hard on organizations like Pads that seek to help the disenfranchised; any donation goes a long way.
Harsha has also written a blog about his volunteering experience with Pads - take a look if you're interested in what it is like to volunteer during the pandemic!
Food Drive - 6/17/2020
This week, Happy Healthy Us decided to use some of the donations the organization has already received to help out in a local community in Westmont, IL. We garnered support in the form of food donations from others in the community and purchased food to donate at a local food bank, the People’s Resource Center in Westmont.
Small efforts at change build up, and it is our hope that more people in the community reach out and help out where they can.
Food insecurity is a problem that the majority of the United States did not have to face over the past couple of decades. According to the USDA, only 11.1% of U.S. households were food insecure in 2018. With the coronavirus pandemic shutting down massive sections of the economy, many Americans are out of a job, and it’s a well known fact that most Americans lack sufficient savings to survive for an extended period of time. Because of this, food insecurity has risen to an all-time high, and many people are struggling to make ends meet and put food on the table.
A special thanks to Sara Villanueva, Ben Rahal, and Praveen Pandikaran for donating food, and shoutout to Praveen (pictured left) for helping unload and package food on Wednesday morning! Praveen's also written a very comprehensive guest blog on the website; please take a look to learn more about this very important topic!