March MSF – Breaking Language Barriers

We would like to present a summary report of our last Monthly Sankirtan Festival (MSF). This article has been written by one of our younger members of the community, Krishna Rajesh. We will be featuring more of these reports so you can follow along with all of the exciting developments and learn how to get involved!

On Saturday, March 31st 2018, Toronto Sankirtan Team (TST) celebrated its 106th consecutive Monthly Sankirtan Festival (MSF) – a monthly outing on the last Saturday of each month, where devotees take with them the beautiful message of Krishna Consciousness to the public in the form of Srila Prabhupada’s books, Krishna Prasad and the Hare Krishna Mahamantra! Started in June 2009, MSFs are now organized across the GTA by TST regional teams: TST East, TST Brampton, TST West, TST Etobicoke, TST Markham, and TST Central.

Fig 1: Jennifer (left) and Zara (right) from China get Srila Prabhupada’s mercy. The mother, Jennifer, borrowed money from her daughter Zara to get the books so she received the blessings of 3 books!

The March MSF was a lot of fun as 6 teams went out for door-to-door Sankirtan spending 3-5 hours knocking doors, and sharing transcendental knowledge and smiles to those who opened their doors! With the introduction of Language Cards, the TST Warriors distributed Srila Prabhupad’s books in cumulative effort to people of various ethnicities, gender, and age.

From devotees as young as pre-schoolers, to seasoned warriors, everyone got together and united under one goal: the goal of distributing Srila Prabhupad’s books. TST West knocked approximately 110 apartments, visited one grocery store, and distributed 84 transcendental literatures, collected lots of Bhoga and Laxmi.

TST Central visited two apartment buildings, knocked almost 270 doors and distributed 87 transcendental books, collected $90 of Laxmi and Bhoga.

TST Brampton distributed 28 books. And TST Etobicoke knocked almost 75 doors and distributed 15 transcendental books for Bhoga and Laxmi. In total, there were 24 devotees involved. Jai Srila Prabhupad! It couldn’t have been done without the blessings of the Vaishnavas, and the hard work and dedication of all the devotees who participated at the front and back end.

Fig 2: Mahabhagavat Prabhu’s (right) new Spanish speaking friend (left) who was touched by Srila Prabhupada’s book and “paid” in whatever best he could find in his house—water bottles.