My dear friends and family,

From my initial post on Facebook, you have generously contributed just over $2000 USD. This GoFundMe is to make this fundraising more visible to more people, and to have a singular location for updates, distribution information, and for transparency.

If you have already contributed, I thank you from the depths of my heart.

If you are seeing this request for the first time, I am grateful for your interest and offer my initial request below, with additional information as to how approximately $1500 USD have been distributed so far.

With love,

Gurpreet

***************

If we’ve known one another for some time, you know (or may just now be finding out) that Sept. 11/12, 2013 was a fate filled night that changed the course of my life forever.

It is always a tender time of the year for me.

In the catastrophic flooding, the resulting mudslide that came crashing through the cabin, the loss of my home, my car, the friends who just had no clue how to help and disappeared; to the army of angels, both from the unseen world who kept me alive that night when truly I should not have lived, to the angels from the world of the seen who shlepped mud, housed me and Mr. Kitty, offered financial support, loaned me their truck and cars, in the immediate aftermath; and, who were there in a multitude of ways during the immense rebuilding of my life, and cried with me and held me in my moments of physical pain and soul ache…

I am beyond grateful for each one of you. The list of names is long. The list of unknown names is longer. I hold you each in my heart, in my daily prays for your health and well-being. May there be a flood of blessings in your life for the immense kindness and grace you each offered in your own way.

And the incredible way that night of ultimate soul surrender to the Divine/ God’s will when I realized that I had survived all while the high speed train of mud crashed through the cabin…

The blessings that arrive on the darkest night of our soul’s course correction…

If you have known me, you know…

And I intimately know the effects of catastrophic flooding.

My gaze and my heart turns to my dear friends, brothers, and sisters who are in the midst of catastrophic flooding in northern India, Punjab — the same area where my family originates from, where my ancestors all farmed and made a life for themselves, and where we have been making the deeply soulful spiritual pilgrimages for the last few years.

Northern Punjab is reeling from the continued release of dam waters. How and why the government chose to release such a massive volume of water in the middle of the night with no warning while people slept, and continues this practice in the days since the original mass flooding, is for a conversation for another time.

1400 villages are impacted

Over 3,000,000 acres of land submerged, including farmland

3.54 million people affected

Massive loss of property, livestock, land

13 districts are severely affected including Amritsar

For now, the people I have come to know so dearly have lost everything — their homes, their agricultural fields, their crops, their cows and so many other animals. The water rose to roof levels in many areas.

I have adopted a family to help directly. My parents are directly helping many. There is a grassroots effort underway to help.

I would love to extend that grace to other families.

Not through any agencies (trust me, Red Cross and other mega aid agencies do not end up distributing much of what is donated to them to those directly affected — ask me how I know this) but through direct donations to them.

The same way many of you helped me directly post 2013 flood.

We have a philosophy in Sikhi of “sarbat da pala” — offering grace and blessings to all of humanity. That we are all truly the children of the same Creator. If we go back far enough, we all have an ancestor in common. And from this philosophy of helping all of humanity, we offer seva — a lived and active practice of helping, assisting those in need.

Here is my request to you:

To make a financial donation.

You can send funds via GoFundMe, Venmo, or Zelle to me and I will send them directly to my contact in Amritsar, Prubh.

I will send 100% of all funds contributed forward.

He will distribute the funds to others directly.

I will keep a transparent accounting of funds contributed and Prubh will offer the same.

These floods have utterly devastated the lives of so many, including people I know personally.

Where two or more gather, the effect of our care is compounded.

I invite you to join me in offering grace in such a dire time for so many.

Prubh is a dear brother, he is fully trustworthy. He is my point of contact in the flooded area around Amritsar. He sends me an update daily via video and voice notes.

Venmo: @Gurpreet-kaur-31 (last four digits are 2323)

Zelle: gurpreetkgill at gmail.com

Label it as “Punjab flood donation” pls

I’ll upload visuals. If you search “Punjab floods” on any social media platform, you will see the plethora of posts documenting it.

I commit to full transparency.

To integrity.

And to helping, offering Seva, wherever guided.

And this is so close in my heart.

Thank you.

I love you.

Let’s be a flood of immense grace/ Grace together.

Let’s compound the blessings together.

From my heart to yours,

~Gurpreet K. Gill

Articles for further information:

CNN-News18

The Wire

Britasia TV

BeerBiceps (one of the most influential podcasters in India)