San Antonio Food Bank benefits from Sikh philosophy of ‘selflessness’

April 27, 2020

 

As it became apparent six weeks ago that the coronavirus pandemic was going to test the San Antonio Food Bank like never before, the nonprofit’s leader welcomed calls from friends wanting to help.

Philanthropist G.P. Singh was one of the first to step forward.

“At the start of the crisis, he reached out to say, ‘How can I help? Where do you need me? How can I be useful?’” Food Bank CEO and president Eric Cooper said. “It wasn’t, I’m coming to you with the big idea. It was, ‘I’m not telling you how to run your business. I’m a servant.’”

Singh’s humble approach came as no surprise to Cooper, who counts his “dear friend” and the other members of the city’s Sikh community as some of the Food Bank’s most devoted supporters.

“I don’t know all the principles of their faith,” Cooper said, “but I know the principles that they exercise. It’s love. It’s service. It’s selflessness. It’s sharing, sharing and caring. They are just amazing people. … They set an example for a lot of other faiths.”

On Saturday, Singh, 68, and his wife, Winkey, delivered hundreds of peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches made by members of the Sikh Dharamsal of San Antonio to the Food Bank for a distribution that fed 600 households.

Later this week, the gurdwara, or house of worship, will make an even bigger delivery to the Food Bank: approximately $250,000 in donations collected through its “Together We Can” campaign.

It’s enough to purchase more than 1 million pounds of food, a much-needed gift as the Food Bank struggles to feed some 120,000 households per week during the pandemic, more than double the number it assisted before the coronavirus crisis hit.

“It is heartwarming,” Singh said of the money that flowed in during the midst of the COVID-19-fueled recession.

“I didn’t think we would be able to make it to $200,000, and now it is almost a quarter of a million.”

Two anonymous donors pledged $75,000 each after the gurdwara last week met its goal of collecting $75,000 by the end of the month. Gurpaul Singh, G.P. Singh’s nephew and an organizer of “Together We Can,” said Christians, Hindus, Jews and Muslims joined the Sikhs in making donations.

“I don’t know the exact number (of donors), but I know they came from all communities and all walks of life,” Gurpaul Singh said. “Folks got involved from the neighborhood, from our business circle, from the military, from the Indian community, from the Jewish community, from the children’s schools.

“It was a tremendous outpouring of generosity. We just wanted to make a difference where it is needed most.”

Originating in the Punjab region of India and Pakistan in the 1500s, Sikhism is a monotheistic religion with more than 25 million followers worldwide, including 700,000 in the U.S. At the core of the faith is Seva, the practice of selfless service for people in need that stems from a story about Guru Nanak, the religion’s founder.

Told as a teen to start a business after his father presented him with a large sum of money, Nanak instead used the gift to feed the poor and later told his father his charitable actions represented a “true business.”

“He gave everything, so that became our tradition of sharing whatever we have,” G.P. Singh said. “Whatever you have, you should share with others before you consume yourself.”

G.P. Singh got to know Cooper, who is a Mormon, in 2014 when the two broke bread at the gurdwara for one of its Sunday community meals.

Cooper shared the story with the congregation of how he found his estranged father homeless and hungry on the streets of Portland, Ore., a life-changing experience that prompted the former North Texas resident to abandon his successful business career to work in food banks.

Cooper, 50, has been CEO of the San Antonio Food Bank for nearly two decades after first working at food banks in Utah and Dallas.

“It was a very moving, personal story,” G.P. Singh said.

A native of India who came to the U.S. in 1974, G.P. Singh earned a doctorate in mechanical engineering from Drexel University in Philadelphia in 1979 before working for Southwest Research Institute and teaching at UTSA. In 1986, he formed Karta Technologies, which developed software designed to make power plants more reliable and maintainable.

Karta Technologies eventually began doing contract work for the U.S. Department of Defense and was San Antonio’s largest privately held defense contractor when G.P. Singh sold the multimillion-dollar company in 2007 to NCI Information Systems of Reston, Va.

Since then, he’s devoted himself to philanthropic ventures and community work, including volunteering at the Food Bank.

“He really understands what community is and is always working it, telling me, ‘We need to do more,’” Cooper said.

Likewise, G.P. Singh has immense respect for Cooper.

“He has great leadership skills,” G.P. Singh said. “He works with a consensus and is very inclusive, working with all faiths, all races, genders, all those things.”

When G.P. Singh arrived at the Food Bank on Saturday to deliver the sandwiches, Cooper greeted him with an enthusiastic elbow bump.

In this age of social distancing, it was the best the friends could do. Under normal circumstances, they embrace, a sign of their deep affection for each other.

“He’s a wonderful gentleman,” G.P. Singh said of Cooper.

 

Source: San Antonio Food Bank benefits from Sikh philosophy of ‘selflessness’ - San Antonio Express-News