We’re Back in Full Force — Aasraa’s 2025 Update

It’s been a while since our last update, and we’re excited to share that Aasraa is officially back in action!

Over the past couple of years, we took a brief pause to complete major repairs on SevaTruck Michigan, regroup as a team, and balance the demands of daily life. Even during that time, our seva never stopped. We continued serving meals on a smaller scale through community collaborations and volunteer-led efforts.

Thanks to your patience and ongoing support, we’re now fully ready to roll again, stronger, more organized, and deeply committed to expanding our reach.

Where We’re Headed

SevaTruck Michigan remains at the heart of Aasraa’s mission, delivering hot, nutritious meals directly to homeless shelters, transitional housing sites, women’s shelters, after-school youth programs, and community centers across Detroit and the surrounding areas.

Since our launch, we have proudly served over 100,000 meals, including more than 700 hot, nutritious meals since September alone. Each meal is prepared with dignity and compassion, reflecting Sikh values of courage, compassion, and collective belonging.

In this next chapter, we’re broadening our impact beyond food service to include youth and community empowerment initiatives such as:

Youth Self-Defense and Empowerment Classes
The Jaswant Singh Khalra 5K, honoring truth and justice
Leadership, Wellness, and Sevaa-based Community Projects

How You Can Help

Your continued support fuels every act of sevaa.
It now costs approximately $8.60 to prepare and deliver a hot, balanced meal for a family of four, about $2.15 per person. Every dollar directly supports meals and empowerment programming.

If you’re able, please consider renewing or increasing your recurring donation through our Dasvandh Network page:
👉 https://dvnetwork.org/projects/aasraa

You can also follow our journey and upcoming events on Instagram:
📸 @aasraami

Thank you for believing in this work and for standing with us through every season.
Together, we continue to nourish our community — body, mind, and spirit — upholding the spirit of Degh Tegh Fateh through compassion and courage.

With gratitude,
The Aasraa Team

Just wanted to give everyone a quick update on what's been happening with Aasraa since our last update at the beginning of November: 

SevaTruck of Michigan has completed seven events this month and served 1,543 complete and nutritious meals.  We have served unhoused and food insecure members of our communities and to families in local school districts. We have 3-4 more events planned for the rest of Novemeber. 

Aasraa Food Pantry has provided 600+ pounds of non perishable food directly to families in need such as beans, rice and vegetables.

In addition to serving and distributing food, we have been able to provide a bed, sofa and cookware to a family in need. We are in the process of setting up a coat and glove drive as winter begins, too, in the coming months. 

Our small ask is that you help support more of this work by starting a reoccuring donation of $10 a month by using the code DVBONUS20 at checkout through the link: 
https://dvnetwork.org/projects/aasraa 

For every new recurring donation started by Sunday, November 22nd 11:59 pm EST, Dasvandh Network will donate $100 to Aasraa as well. 

$10 dollars a month helps fund almost 7 meals for those in need. With the additional $100, we are able to deliver 74 meals! The opportunity to multiply our impact is priceless. 100% of our donations go to purchasing and distributing food and supplies to the community. 

Dear Supporters of Aasraa, 

Last year, your donations and support of Aasraa inspired 9,168 meals distributed to families in the greater Detroit area. You helped make someone’s day a little bit easier, knowing that they had a warm meal and fresh groceries available at a moment’s notice. Your generosity has made a difference.

This year has been incredibly tough for everyone. It goes without saying that the pandemic, political uncertainty and so much more has put even more stress on vulnerable communities. One troubling impact of the pandemic has been the growing food deserts in our communities. Our team of volunteers jumped into action as businesses closed, people lost their jobs and livelihoods, and children who depended on free meals at school were no longer getting them.

We’ve shifted away from our food pantry to using our Food Truck (Seva Truck of Michigan) more and more so meals and fresh food is delivered to those who need it the most. Partnering with local schools and homeless shelters, Aasraa has served over 19,000 meals across Detroit and distributed over 4,000 lbs of canned food since the pandemic began in March 2020. Each meal averages approximately $1.50. 100% of donations go directly to the community, used to cook meals and to buy eco-friendly utensils and supplies. 

We don’t know when the pandemic will end. We do know that our services are critical for so many in the community. We’ve done so much with our limited budget. With your support, we can do even more. Dasvandh Week starts tomorrow (11/13) at 12:00 PM EST and continues till November 22nd. You have an opportunity to support Aasraa again by helping us raise up to $15,000 so that we can continue making a difference. 

During Dasvandh Week, your donations to Aasraa made through dvnetwork.org will be matched. DVWEEK20 must be entered at checkout for Aasraa to receive matching funds. You can find out more about the matching policy for DasvandhWeek here. 

May Degh and Tegh flourish in the name of Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh. 

Thank you for being our Aasraa (support). 

Aasraa Volunteers

ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂ ਜੀ ਕਾ ਖ਼ਾਲਸਾ ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂ ਜੀ ਕੀ ਫ਼ਤਹਿ॥

Thanks to all your generosity and support, SevaTruck MI has been quite active in the SE Michigan area throughout the COVID pandemic.

We have, with your help, provided over 3200 meals since mid March. 

With the COVID pandemic, needs for prepared meals have increased and in the recent weeks, SevaTruck MI has newly partnered with local school districts, shelters, and low income senior living centers to expand access for the local community. Going out 5x/week to different locations, SevaTruck has been able to serve in many new ways. 

We continue to be thankful for the financial support that we have received, and humbled by the overwhelming support of local volunteers to help prepare the now 800-1000 meals/week being distributed during this endeavor.

Plans for the near future include increasing partnerships with local agencies to help provide greater access points for our communities to receive high quality prepared meals.

While the COVID pandemic has highlighted much of the inequity in our community, a silver lining is how willing volunteers are to take care of their communities in inspiring ways.

ਚੜ੍ਹਦੀ ਕਲਾ

ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂ ਜੀ ਕਾ ਖ਼ਾਲਸਾ ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂ ਜੀ ਕੀ ਫ਼ਤਹਿ॥

Vaaheguru Ji Ka Khalsa  Vaaheguru Ji Ki Fateh!

We would like to apologize for the gap between our updates.  Being a strictly volunteer run org, sometimes the simple things fall between the cracks and we ask for your forgiveness.

Please know how much we appreciate your support and that we are constantly looking to extend our reach into the community. 

During 2018, we have continued to hold our pantries a minimum of twice a month and started our newest initiative SevaTruck Michigan. While our pantry continues to maintain a steady pace of clients, we are looking to the second half of 2018 to accelerate our growth of SevaTruck  into the community. 

One of our most impactful partnerships has been with Avondale School District. Once a month, volunteers take the Truck out and serve between 120 - 200 meals to children and their families.  On October 8th we have an exciting opportunity to expand this program to other schools. We are meeting with our local Food Bank, Gleaners Community Food Bank, and discussing with their managers our mission.  The goal will be to partner with more school districts in our area and bring fresh, healthy, hot meals to children and their families.

After the 8th, we look forward to providing you with an update on our progress. 

Once again, thank you for your support.  You make our work possible!

Charhdi Kala!

Vaaheguru Ji Ka Khalsa  Vaaheguru Ji Ki Fateh!