Be the Cause, an organization dedicated to service projects, is using healthy food and hungry bellies to spread the word of altruistic services.
Every Sunday at 4 p.m. Zephyr’s Vegetarian Café in Downtown Long Beach closes its door and transforms into Seva Café. This café is entirely separate from Zephyr’s and is unique because there are no prices on the menu, no bill given at the end of the meal, and is run solely by student volunteers from Be the Cause organization.
At the end, an empty envelope is left on the table where patrons can donate as much as they like. These donations help pay for future meals.
“Seva” translated from Sanskrit means selfless service or to serve others without thought of personal gain or reward. This café aims to serve its guests with the utmost respect and unconditional love.
Be the Cause runs many other service projects and service trips to developing countries where members can travel and volunteer.
Be the Cause members have traveled to Sri Lanka, South Africa and India where Sukh Chugh, founder of Be the Cause, volunteered at the original Seva Café in Ahmedabad, India.
“Before we all went, we knew about Seva and its affiliation with Manav Sadhana, the nonprofit that runs it,” Sukh said. “After volunteering we knew we wanted to bring this concept over.”
The first Seva Café experiment was hosted at Royal Cup Café on 10th Street and Redondo Avenue during 2006-2007. There it used Royal Cup’s food, menu and got help from the restaurant’s baristas.
This first Seva café experiment was intended to run for only 10 weeks, but stayed open for 10 months. Once the agreement was up, Seva Café took a sabbatical.
After a year-and-a-half break, Be the Cause members searched out a new location for its relaunch, and in October 2008, Seva Café re-launched its “experiment” at Zephyr’s.
“It’s like starting your own restaurant,” Sukh said. We did taste testing at various members’ houses to see what foods we wanted to cook.”
Seva Café’s menu is all vegetarian. There signature dishes are “Que-seva” quesadillas, “BTC” sandwiches (basil, tomato, and cheese), “Veggie (hummus and goat cheese) sandwich, BBQ salad and a weekly special.
“Oh man, they make a mean BBQ salad — it’s crunchy and is a good combination of flavors,” said David Washington, a CSULB Africana studies senior, and frequent patron of Seva.
“We serve veggie food because we support non-violence and Zephyr’s would never let us serve meat,” said Christine Bulaoro, a member, volunteer and honorary grocery shopper.
Sukh starts the orientation where each person is assigned a role. After a quick overview of Seva’s mission, all the volunteers break up into their perspective groups and start preparing for the first guests.
Seva has about 18 to 20 volunteers each week.
Ella Gomez, 28, a Los Angeles resident, has volunteered at Seva consecutively for the past three months.
“I thought it was going to be a once or twice a month thing, but now I’m here every weekend,” Gomez said.
On the surface level Seva Café operates on a pay-it-forward model but in a deeper angle Seva challenges critical reflective questions of values and actions, selfishness and compassion for servers and guests.
Expectations are left at the door at Seva Café.
“When a server leaves an envelope at the table, something profound happens, you wonder how much money these people will leave?” Sukh said. “But I can’t measure how well the night went based on how much money was left inside those envelopes.”
Edwin Liddie, sophomore CSULB liberal studies major recalls a time when he left his wallet at home and could not leave money after his meal.
“I mean you’re not obligated to give, but it makes you want to give,” Liddie said.
Seva Café serves you humbly seeking no profit or reward.
“I love being there, it’s the best time of my week,” Bulaoro said.
“The food is made with love and when you eat food that’s made with love, you become what you eat,” Washington said.
Brittany Kelly, a CSULB junior omparative literature major has eaten at Seva consecutively for the past eight weeks.
“I think this experience is more about connecting with the people that come, I’ve even gotten close to all the volunteers here,” Kelly said.
For now Seva continues to be a Long Beach community experiment.
If you would like to volunteer visit www.bethecause.org