Devotees at our fall fundraiser.

As most ISKCON readers know, Saranagati Village was evacuated on the evening of July 17th, 2024. During our three-week absence, some devotees lost their homes, and others lost their wood sheds, outbuildings, storage structures, and equipment like chainsaws, the community plow, and sander.

We are not able to get insurance as we are an off-grid community, and so we have to cover the costs of cleanup and rebuilding. The government helped with our basic needs while we were evacuated, but that’s it.

A couple of volunteer organizations, like Rubicon, have come in to help identify dangerous trees and have removed many of them.  A Christian aid group assisted us with the removal of all the metal, while a local business removed all the burnt vehicles for us.

The homesites that burned down have been completely cleaned up recently. Winter is around the corner, and we were able to secure some wood for those who lost their supply in the fire. We are far from finished with this disaster.

Fundraising Updates
We attended Vancouver Rathayatra and Janmastami; while we didn’t raise much money, we did receive many blessings. A local girl from town set up a lemonade stand that raised over $1500 for us. We also attended the local fall fair in Ashcroft and raised some money, as well as made some contacts for future support. Representatives from the TOVP visited us and gave us a donation, as did ISKCON Toronto. We are grateful for all of this support. On October 12th, we hosted our annual Govardhana Academy Fall Fair, where we raised funds to replace our cookie oven that was lost in the fire.

Some of our short-term goals are restoring power and replacing our community snow plow. As of last week,a logging company has started removing all the dead trees in some areas of Saranagati Village.

How You Can Help
Both individual devotees as well as ISKCON temples are invited to donate additional funds to help the community rebuild. The Saranagati Village community is  deeply grateful for any support. For additional details and to make a donation, click here. For further information, contact us via email. For US-residents who wish to make a tax-deductible donation to Saranagati’s Venables Valley Wildfire Relief Fund (facilitated by New Vrindaban), click here.