GOOD KARMA: Pay-As-You-Like Restaurants

When you hear the word Seva, what does it mean to you? Quite literally, Seva means service. In the context of faith, it means selfless service rendered as a community action, done for the goodwill and benefit of others. 

Seva Café is an experiment in the shared joy that comes from humble giving and selfless service. Their wholesome meals are cooked and served with love by volunteers and offered to guests as a gift, paid for in full by previous guests.

As more participate in the joy of giving, the more the experiment thrives. It begins with a single gift: first given, then received... multiplied, and given again, in a growing chain of kindness and care. The hope is that this Circle of Giving leaves one feeling more nourished, and inspired to carry the experiment forward. Locations: Seva Café takes over Zephyr Vegetarian Café 340 E 4th St. Long Beach, CA, 90802 and Shopper’s Plaza, 4th Floor Opp Municipal Market, C.G. Road Ahmedabad, Gujarat India, 380 009

Karma kitchen another Pay-As-You-Wish restaurant. There are no prices on the menu and where the check reads $0.00 with only this footnote: "Your meal was a gift from someone who came before you. To keep the chain of gifts alive, they invite you to pay it forward for those dine after you. That's Karma Kitchen, a volunteer-driven experiment in generosity. Run by volunteers, their meals are cooked and served with love, and offered to guests as a genuine gift. Location: Taste of Himalayas Restaurant 1700 Shattuck Ave, Berkley CA.

Other Pay-as-you-like Restaurants: There are an increasing number of pay-as-you-wish restaurant sightings around the globe!

• Better World Cafe: a community kitchen in New Jersey.
• Gift-Economy Cab: in Vermont, a cab driver steps it up!
• Honesty Cafes: 7,456 of them across Indonesia!
• Cafe Kafee Kucch, Chandigarh, India
• One World Spokane: no menu, no prices in Washington.
• City Cafe Bakery (Kitchener, Ontario, Canada)
• Wine Bar (Berlin, Germany)
• No Food Restaurant (King City)
• Annalakshmi (Singapore, Malaysia, India)
• Lentil As Anything (many branches in Australia)
• One World Everybody Eats (Salt Lake City, Utah)
• SAME ("So All May Eat" -- Denver, Colorado)
• TerraBite (Seattle)
• Made with Love Cafe (New Orleans)
• Mother's Kitchen (Across USA)
• Krishnan (Madurai, India)
• Seva Cafe (Ahmedabad, India, also in LA for six months)
• Wednesdays (Santa Clara, CA)
• Vimala Cooks, Everybody Eats (Chapel Hill, North Carolina)

HELP BRING CLEAN WATER TO PEOPLE IN NEED

Right now, almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. That’s one in eight of us. Mycharity: water is a non-profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations. They use 100% of public donations to directly fund sustainable water solutions in areas of greatest need. Go to the mycharity: water store http://www.charitywater.org/shop/index.php to purchase products: tshirts, wristbands, greeting cards, neckties…. The proceeds will help support charity: water operating costs and fund sustainable clean water solutions in developing nations. Alternatively you can create your own fundraising campaign http://mycharitywater.org/p/signin and collect donations to support the mycharity: water.

Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of diseases and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Children are especially vulnerable, as their bodies aren't strong enough to fight diarrhea, dysentery and other illnesses.

90% of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and unhygienic living conditions are to children under five years old. Many of these diseases are preventable. The UN predicts that one tenth of the global disease burden can be prevented simply by improving water supply and sanitation.

In Africa alone, people spend 40 billion hours every year just walking for water. Women and children usually bear the burden of water collection, walking miles to the nearest source, which is unprotected and likely to make them sick. 

MY WORK: Poster for Haiti Poster Project

My poster design: "HANDS OF HOPE" for the Haiti Poster Project is up to $50. It started at $25, so that means it must be selling! Yeah! Yippee!!! It says the media is digital, but I hand silkscreened/printed it on archival 140lb coldpressed watercolor paper... The Haiti Poster Project is a collaboration of artists and designers from around the world, benefitting victims of the earthquake in Haiti...

ABOUT THE POSTER: The poster was inspired by the unwavering faith and hope of the Haitian people in the face of unimaginable hardship. The hands are raised up in supplication - and the prayers are being answered in a shower of hope. The texture at the bottom is a representation of the cracked ground of Port-au-Prince.