15th Monthly Sankirtan Festival - Highlights

August 28th marked the 15th consecutive Monthly Sankirtan Festival of the Toronto Sankirtan Team. Battling the scorching heat, the sankirtan warriors hit the streets at 11am distributing Srila Prabupada’s presents through the specially themed—Festival of Goodwill. Accompanied by constant harinam, the sankirtan team greeted the passersby with prasadam and books signifying the advent of Yoga in the Western world 45 years ago by Srila Prabhupada. 18 devotees participated for 3 hours distributing 40 books for a total of 126 laxmi points.
At another front, under the able leadership of Mathura Gopika devi dasi, the Sankirtan team setup a table displaying Srila Prabhupada’s books in front of a Textile Store in Scarborough from 10am-7pm. Inviting guests to the Janamastami festivities, this team distributed 33 books for a total of 200 laxmi points.

A special innovation this month was the "kiddie packs". Inspired by Vaisesika Prabhu, these kiddie packs were for the kids passing by our Sankirtan Tables. Sing Lung and Kalki led this innovation by making 32 very attractive packs with a Krsna coloring book, non-toxic crayons and some prasadam candy! The Kiddie packs definitely seemed to be doing their bit by attracting the little ones and subsequently the parents followed.

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!