If you want to understand the story behind Poonam and Nishkaam’s “Million Meals for Love” campaign, you have to go back to the moment Nishkaam asked Poonam for her hand in marriage.
NISHKAAM: “I remember a little speech that I gave at the time that I was on my knees. Just Poonam’s reaction, I knew that I was nervous, right?
Not so much for doubt she would say, “Yes,” but more nervous because the waters were a bit choppy, right? And I think that I was like please, don’t fall over, ring! Please don’t fall into the water.
And so I was a bit nervous about that, I went down on one knee and I just started to express to Poonam how I felt about her. And I think that’s the moment that I just looked at her face and I just, that visual communication from her body language, being YES like a million times over. That’s what I’m going to remember.”
When they started to talk about their big day, they knew they didn’t want a big traditional Indian wedding. Instead, they wanted to incorporate a charitable act into this next chapter of their life. That’s how the idea for “Million Meals for Love” — an ambitious campaign to help hungry children — was born.
POONAM: “The more we thought about it, the more we were researching the World Food Programme — we realized we could maximize our impact to this cause and really make a statement at a significant milestone, this is how we choose to celebrate. We felt that would have a more lasting impact for us and really set the tone for how we want our marriage and our life ahead to be.”
So they challenged their friends, family and anyone who cared about the issue of child hunger to download the World Food Programme’s Share the Meal app. Their goal? To provide 1 million meals to children impacted by Boko Haram’s violence in Cameroon. They set a fitting deadline — Valentine’s Day, the day of their civil ceremony.
