Non-profit teamwork

MedShare and Hindu temple send supplies overseas

“The next person to touch these gloves will be across Earth,” Tushar Patel said recently, after he packed more than two tons of medical gloves for underprivileged countries on Saturday, June 18. Tushar is a member of the Hindu Temple on Penhorn Avenue, the Shree Swaminarayan Temple. He organized 30 volunteers of the temple to help MedShare International package medical supplies.
The non-profit organization MedShare International redistributes medical supplies and equipment to healthcare facilities in the developing world. According to the Health Care Without Harm website, an advocate for environmental health, most of the two million tons of waste generated by hospitals per year is unused medical supplies and equipment.

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“To do something so simple, but make a big impact on the world and someone else’s life, is a service.” –Tushar Patel
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“MedShare relies on volunteers like us to package these supplies,” Tushar said, “Young and old members of the temple saw an opportunity to spread peace throughout the world in a different way.” The Swaminarayan Temple and other Hindu temples around the world participate in activities like volunteering to spread the word of peace and to serve the community.
Secaucus resident and volunteer Devendra B. Patel said, “Even though MedShare is only half a block away, we never had the opportunity to connect with them. They’re also a nonprofit to improve health care and the environment, and this was good to work with a fellow non-profit in Secaucus.”
Tushar added, “To do something so simple, but make a big impact on the world and someone else’s life is a service, and that’s what our religion is about, wanting to serve others.”
Since the temple and MedShare are on the same street, Tushar and the volunteers walked to the non-profit to get started.
Devendra Patel added, “In fact I brought my daughter [4] with me who, at the time, according to MedShare was the youngest volunteer. She helped out quite a bit at the best of what she can do which is help the person making the boxes. It was a good experience for her.” He also brought his younger brother.
On the day of packaging, the members were told by MedShare Regional Director James White that they were the biggest team of volunteers and packaged a record of two tons of medical gloves to be sent to developing countries.

Strong, close community

The local temple has hosted health events to help the community in the past like setting up health camps, hosting free breast cancer screenings, checking glucose levels, and hosting blood drives.
Members have started arts and crafts classes to make jewelry and decorations for a shrine. They started to decorate the shrine according to different themes like currency, flowers, candy, or cars. People pray inside the temple before the shrine, which includes statues of the three most recent heads of religion, or the equivalent to the Christian pope. It was built in the temple by 34 monks from a huge slab of marble.
Tushar said the members of the temple are close because of frequent visits from the current Acharya Swamishree. Acharya Swamishree lives in India, but has visited the temple every year since 2001. The first weekend of August will be his 16th visit to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the temple. Tushar and Devendra said they’ll both attend the affair with many other members.
“He’s been visiting since our childhood. He watched us grow up,” Tushar said. “This temple is more than religion, it’s a family,” Tushar said.

Samantha Meyers can be reached at samantham@hudsonreporter.com .

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