Love for Lunch: Fort Walton Beach, FL
I joined the Sai Organization in 1987 because of the love and admiration I felt for one person and her dedication to service. Soma Calnaido held the Sathya Sai Center of Fort Walton Beach, Florida in her home. Little did I know how much her friendship and the Sai Organization would transform my life.
One Saturday, I stopped by Soma’s home and found her in the kitchen amidst pots and pans boiling on the stove, and a tall stack of Styrofoam takeout plates. When asked what she was doing, she casually said she was delivering vegetarian food to recipients on her Meals on Wheels route. She worried that people on her route would go hungry because the Council on Aging (which provides the meals) was closed on weekends. I helped her carry everything to her car, and my journey into service began.
Initially I wasn’t interested in getting to know the people we delivered to; they were simply recipients. But Soma treated each one lovingly, like it was God Himself she was serving, and they responded in kind. This caused me to see them with new eyes. Gradually they became friends, and then like family members to me. My heart expanded, and as I learned to love each one, my service expanded as well: running errands for them and even helping one of them move.
When Soma moved in 1994, we didn’t know where the Sai Center would meet or what the people who depended on us for Meals on Wheels would do. Baba came to me in a dream. Walking up and down the property line in front of my house, He appeared to be scattering seeds all along the border. When He was done, He dusted off his hands, put them on His hips, and nodded His head with satisfaction.
I mentioned my dream to Soma, who phoned her mentor in Miami, who, in turn, phoned the parent Sai organization in India to ask permission for the Fort Walton Beach Center to move to my home. Baba confirmed His coming to see me and gave His permission for the Center to continue in my home. Thus, we were able to keep the Meals on Wheels Project going.
We called the service project “Love for Lunch,” which helped recipients know that the meals were provided by Sai volunteers and were free. I typed a “Love for Lunch” cookbook so we could remember the quantities required to feed 25-40 people. A friend brought it to India to be blessed. It was presented to Baba in an interview and He held it, blessed it, and thumbed through its pages. When it was returned to me, there was a sticky, flame-shaped smudge on the back cover, as if Baba left a residue of amrita (honey) on it.
Over the years, the number of participants slowly dropped until only I was left. When I lost my job and our finances were cut in half, “Love for Lunch” continued. When my husband begged me to stop, it continued. By this time, I only wanted to do service.
When I spent our entire food budget on “Love for Lunch” groceries alone, it continued. It really became rather miraculous. Just like loaves and fishes in the Bible, or Baba feeding 70,000 people on his 70th Birthday, the food from each week’s “Love for Lunch” fed my husband and I all week. It doesn’t make sense even today, but somehow the food stretched. Sometimes the food seemed to double. The meal portions were very large, so it would last the recipients over the entire weekend, but the meals lasted my husband and me all week; this expanded my faith.
Baba’s “Love for Lunch” service project continued for 22 years until every one of the people on the route either dropped out, relocated to a nursing home, moved in with family, or died.
Service to others is the method Baba used to expand my heart. Beginning with love for only one person, the love grew to extend to everyone alike, and then for the love of service itself. For this I will be forever grateful. Thank you, Baba, and Soma, from the bottom of my expanded heart.