Tsagaan Sar Food Drive Challenge Feeds 80 Families in Ub

ByMichelle Borok

Like the people of many cultures around the world, Mongolians show their hospitality and appreciation for the people in their lives with food. There are numerous traditions in Mongolian culture surrounding the serving, offering, and receipt of food and drink, and each of them reminds us of the gift of being able to give and receive.

During Tsagaan Sar, the Mongolian observance of the Lunar New Year, many of these traditions are central to celebrations and the ringing in of a bountiful year. Families spend tremendous amounts of money on preparing food to welcome guests, so that no one ever leaves a home hungry. But what is Tsagaan Sar like for the families that struggle to put food on the table on a normal day?

Last year, a group of foreign and Mongolian volunteers raised funds and gathered donations of food to fill boxes with Tsagaan Sar

essentials to give to economically vulnerable families in Ulaanbaatar and just outside of Darkhan in Nomgon soum. Social workers helped the volunteers connect to the families most in need, many led by single mothers, elderly, and parents with disabilities keeping them from being able to work. Over 50 families were provided with boxes filled with flour, rice, vegetable oil, sugar, salt, aaruul, boov, and other items that help make a Tsagaan Sar feast.

This year, some of 2015#8242s volunteers were joined by many more new ones in Ulaanbaatar, and 80 families were given boxes of food and more for the 2016 Tsagaan Sar Food Drive Challenge. The challenge was met with help from individual donors who brought in food items and local companies who donated tremendous amounts for the challenge volunteers to distribute.

The coordination of donations was led by B.Munkhtsetseg at Porsche Ulaanbaatar. The company was the headquarters for donation drop-offs in the city and provided transportation for deliveries of boxes to families. With help from B.Odgerel from InfoMongol.mn, volunteers Erin Eidenshink, A.Enkhkhuslen, Susan Durrant, B.Enkhjin, and N.Dorjpalam, word of the Tsagaan Sar Food Drive Challenge was spread through personal networks, social media, websites (in English, Mongolian and Russian), and food and cash donations were collected from friends and family in Mongolia, the U.S., Canada, and Australia.

Donations of food and much more poured in from Shangri-La Hotel, Wagner Asia, the American School of Ulaanbaatar, Cafe Tree, Areva Mongol LLC, Porsche Ulaanbaatar, ING Bank, and Teso Corporation...