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Gracy, then 28, lost her job as a preschool teacher. The Rs 5 lakh raised through the jewellery lasted roughly six months, but it was nowhere near enough to cover the home’s annual expenses. The contrast was stark: less than a year earlier, the couple had to turn to their own jewellery to raise Rs 5 lakh simply to feed the children. By April 2021, a public crowdfunding campaign had brought in Rs 53 lakh.
Shivaji had lost his full-time job as a driver even before Covid, while his part-time work also stopped.
But we never thought of shutting down the home,” Gracy told TOI. The financial strain intensified during the pandemic. Donations to the home also dried up. The family eventually fell behind on its electricity bills, leaving the home without power for four months. In the kitchen, they had to cut costs further, removing eggs and milk from the children’s meals. “We had run out of all options and were just praying to god.
The money offered the home some breathing room, but the reason behind the campaign went back to the couple’s decision years earlier to take in children who had nowhere else to go.
When donations dried up during the Covid pandemic, Shivaji and Prema Lazarus were left with a choice they had never imagined making — mortgage and sell their jewellery to keep 23 children fed. The couple had been running Miracle Manna Ministry, a home for orphaned and homeless children in Bengaluru, since 2011. By 2021, the home had grown from two children to 23 — 12 girls and 11 boys. In August 2020, the couple raised Rs 5 lakh by mortgaging and selling their jewellery. Months later, a crowdfunding campaign would raise Rs 53 lakh for the children. The couple eventually started Miracle Manna with two children in 2011. By April 2021, 23 children were living with them. What had started as a small effort had become a home that needed around Rs 22 lakh a year to run, including rent, bills and school fees.
We wanted to take care of them,” Prema told TOI. But the pandemic left the family struggling to pay even basic bills. The money lasted about six months and was largely needed to put food on the table. The story of Miracle Manna began more than two decades ago. A cousin of Shivaji had abandoned his three children and wife on the streets. Shivaji took them in and raised the children himself. The experience stayed with the couple. “We realised there are so many more children like them on the roads. Prema cooked for the children, while their daughter Gracy handled their teaching.