“Children are a blessing”. Everyone who is a parent or loves children will agree. A mother to be spends 9 months in anticipation of this blessing. The birth of a child brings happiness into the lives of the new parents, especially the mother. One of our group members was one such mother. Unfortunately, her son was born with Crohn’s disease. A rare disease of the digestive tract that required him to be in the ICU for a prolonged period of time. This is the kind of thing that could move even a rock to tears. Soon, there was a post appealing the group members to help raise funds for the baby, the medical expenses were beyond the parents’ means. Like they always have been, PULA members were prompt to respond and reach out. A milaap.org link was shared. A staggering amount of 4,00,000 INR was raised through PULA alone. Apart from this, there were several posts inquiring about the baby’s health and wishing him well. The baby that has fondly been named “The PULA baby” turned one in November 2018 and one of our wonderful PULA bakers baked a cake for his birthday. He is out of ICU and recovering but needs constant medical care. His mother expressed her gratitude at the end of 2018 through a post on the group thanking the members for having stoop by her and for their never ending support and prayers. We pray and hope he recovers completely, soon.

In a world where humanity is dying, the fact that thousands of people from a single group come forward to help a child selflessly restores my faith in humanity. PULA is a community that thrives on principles like love, compassion and selflessness. Alone I may, together we can!

This real incident is conceptualized by Prajakta Mayank Noel from the post on PULA.