Wal-mart Sankirtan—The Magical Breakthrough

For years now, sankirtana devotees in the USA have been a regular sight at Wal-Mart Stores. In Toronto, however, this was unheard of – until now. Our 10th MSF marked the attainment of our first ever Wal-Mart permit, courtesy of an extremely sincere, hard-working devotee and sankirtana regular!
"When H.G. Vaisesika Prabhu was with us on Friday (March 2010) and asked whether anybody had a connection with Wal-Mart, I had a heart ache; I felt bad that I couldn't do any thing. I just made a humble request at Krishna’s lotus feet," Menaka Thambiratnam recalls. Soon enough, Krishna answered her sincere prayers. We received permission to set up a display, provided there was no other fund-raising initiative taking place. We jumped at the opportunity
and set up shop on March 27th!
"When we were on the road or did door to door sankirtana, most of the time people seemed to be in such a hurry. At Wal-Mart we had different experience - people approached our table; they had questions and were willing to spend more than 20 or 25 minutes talking to us. We met people who already have many of Srila Prabhupada's books at home and others who don't know anything about Lord Krishna" says Mother Menaka. Also helping out at the display in Wal-Mart was Mother Sita Thakurani and Milind Prabhu. The team members thoroughly enjoyed themselves, spoke to many people, gave out 700 prasad candies and distributed 24 books for 170 laxmi points!

"Back in December ’09, I saw a fundraising stand for a charitable organization at a Wal-Mart,” says Mother Menaka. “In my heart I really felt that we should have a table full of Srila Prabhupada's books in the same way. Thanks to Vaisesika Prabhu’s December visit, I had a clue that it might be possible. The rest was the Sankirtana Team and Wal-Mart – we all worked together. It was that simple. It seems that Krishna already made all the arrangements
and He was just wanting us to discover them. We all are on a limited visa, not an open one. We all can do much more to please Krsna. Everyday I am thankful to the devotee who introduced me to this joyful world. Thank you Srila Prabhupada. Thank you Vaisesika Prabhu. Thank you Sankirtan Team”.

In the months to come, we'll reach out to other Wal-Marts and stores in different areas, with a hope of taking the transcendental mission of Srila Prabhupada
to every store…every corner of the GTA!