When Mayank Agarwal passed away last month due to COVID-19, the world came crashing down for his mother Purnima Agarwal and brother Varun Agarwal. Most of us have experienced a situation when we heard about the loss of distant relatives or friends of friends to COVID-19. It's an entirely different thing if it's your immediate family.
Instead of giving in to the grief, Purnima and her younger son, Varun went one step ahead and decided to help many such COVID-19 patients who are in need of beds or treatment at private hospitals.
Varun Agarwal, who is an entrepreneur, had 15 people in his team gather contacts of COVID patients and people in need of other services. He says, "We have been able to raise Rs 50 lakh so far and help those patients who were critical and in urgent need of beds. With limited or no beds available in government hospitals, these people had to opt for private hospitals. But in such cases, they might not have sufficient money to afford beds and treatment. Therefore, we raised funds through our website. mayankforbangalore.com. This fund is called the Mayank Agarwal Memorial Fund."
He continues, "The main idea behind our campaign is to help lower-income families in all the ways we can. We have impacted over 100 families and have provided meals to over 12,000 homeless people across Bengaluru. Besides this, we have provided sanitary pads to 1,500 underprivileged girls for a year. We are following the path of what Mayank did when he lived. There was not a single day when he didn't help people in need. There were several incidents when he helped people in need of food on the street or in need of money at our office. We are just following his legacy."
Besides raising funds through their website, Varun and his mother have been raising funds through Milaap and Ketto, two online platforms where people can donate funds for those in need. These funds raised for a particular family or a purpose have been transferred to their bank accounts. "We have a team that verifies if there is a genuine need for treatment or food. After verifying documents including bank statements, health insurance, hospital bills and an official estimate from hospital for their treatment, we go ahead and determine the fundraiser's specifics. Then, we start a campaign to raise funds through online platforms and link their bank accounts. We promote this campaign on our Instagram page, mayankforbangalore and once the goal is reached, the money is transferred to the person within three to four working days, " says Varun whose team has also collaborated with Project Seva to provide ration kits to families.
When we asked him if their group will continue to help people even after the reduction in COVID cases, Varun says, "We will continue to work and help the low-income families but it will be for the cancer patients. Most of these patients are unable to bear the expenses for cancer treatment. Therefore, we are trying to figure out how we can raise funds for such petients. Even hospitals can collaborate with us to reduce the hospital bills or medical expenses. But we have a long way to go in helping cancer patients."
