How far does $5.00 go here in Australia? A cup of coffee, maybe a loaf of bread - it could barely afford the ingredients for one nutritious meal.
Five dollars doesn’t buy a lot here in the West but in India, it can feed an impoverished woman and her family for a whole month.
The Byron Bay Satsang group has been raising funds for the Amrita Nidhi pension scheme, a monthly pension program for widows and destitute women provided by the MA Math, born out of Amma’s compassion. Many impoverished women in India do not qualify for government pensions, with Amrita Nidhi fulfilling an important need enabling them to buy food, medicine and schoolbooks for their children.
 The group has held a monthly cake-stall on the footpath outside Woolworths in Byron Bay raising $4298.55 over the last twelve months - providing 860 monthly pensions to the scheme. White cake trays are covered in clear cellophane and curling ribbon and are sold off at $5.00 apiece, filled with an assortment of homemade cakes, brownies and biscuits.
Most customers are astonished to discover the $5.00 they have spent on their tray of vegan banana-cashew slice or white chocolate and macadamia brownies will provide for an impoverished women and her family for an entire month. Some customers have been so moved after speaking with cake-stall volunteers that they have simply donated money to the pension scheme, sometimes a significant amount, and refuse to accept anything in return.
 Volunteers regularly participate in the cake-stall, spending several days before in preparation – pouring through recipes, shopping for ingredients and baking.
Goods are carefully wrapped and labeled and are delivered to the stall from 9am where volunteers work in shifts, providing the opportunity to exchange stories on Amma and get to know each other better. It has been a blessing from Amma to serve her in this manner.
Amma inaugurated theAmrita Nidhi pension schemein 1998. The pensions are provided to the recipients for life.
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I recently met Jocelyn during her recent visit to Byron Bay to spend Christmas with her family. She said she has never actually met Amma in person but as she knits she thinks of all the women in India she is helping who have to walk long distances each day to fetch water to feed and care for their families.
When Jocelyn arrived in Australia this trip she had over 300 small cardigans stuffed in the pockets and spare spaces amongst her clothes in her suitcase. ”If the customs officer had asked to open the bag” she said “ there is no way we would have managed to have closed it again!”