University of Florida Krishna Lunch Goes National
Posted April 30, 2009
For the last 38 years devotees from the Gainesville ISKCON temple have been distributing prasadam on the campus of the University of Florida, one of the largest Universities in North America. The humble beginnings of this program are credited to Gargamuni das and later to Amarendra das who legalized the distribution of prasadam after a lengthy legal battle in 1977. Later, Hrdayananda das Goswami joined him and became Gainesville's first temple president. Over the years that followed prasadam distribution continued unabated under the auspices of devotees such as Rtadvaja Swami, Daru Brahman das, and Savyasaci das. Life changing prasadam stories fill the pages of old copies of the Gainesville Nectar News Newsletter revealing the fact that prasadam has untold benefits, material and spiritual, and also goes a long way in simply making friends, what to speak of devotees.
Today, the program goes under the name Krishna Lunch (www.krishnalunch.com), and students are often seen to be talking to friends about "Krishna" Lunch this and "Krishna" Lunch that. The chanting of the holy names of the Lord has expanded, and so has the prasadam distribution. Thousands of plates of prasadam are distributed each week between the campus program from 11-1:30pm and the Late Lunch program at the temple from 2-4pm. The recently introduced Krishna Dinner on Saturday evenings draws an additional 50 people a week. Kalakantha das, the current temple president, can be credited with this increase in distribution over the last two years, assisted by Bhakta Hanan who has managed the Krishna Lunch program for the last six years.
Recently, abcnews.com featured an article about Krishna Lunch on their Campus Page (Click Here). And now a video documentary by a student of UF has appeared on UTube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMLJ2Qp8Az4).