Since B.C. declared a COVID-19 emergency, Neeraj Walia put his drywall business on hold.He’s spent every day since at the gurdwara volunteering to serve the people of Surrey.
“That’s seva,” he said, the selfless
service that’s a foundation of the Sikh faith.
At the gurdwara, volunteers like Walia
had been prepping welcome packages for the city’s large international student
population since November — blankets, sheets, mattresses and groceries — when
the news of COVID-19 broke. They had given out 4,064 packages at that point...
.“There were
people who actually tested positive and were under quarantine for 14 days,”
said Singh. “We served those people with food, medicine — everything in the
last three months.” He says that volunteers have made about 25,000 trips since
March.
The gurdwara also offered meals to
long-haul truckers and frontline staff at the Surrey and White Rock hospitals.
For those still looking for langar, the gurdwara offered it via drive-through
in the parking lot from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m., using its Modi Kitchen food truck.
Gurdwara Dukh Nivaran Sahib is located in Surrey at 68th Avenue and 152 Street, sharing a parking lot with a Punjabi supermarket and an intersection with two other places of worship, an Ismaili Jamatkhana and a modern evangelical church called Relate.
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