http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...ples-lake-oroville-evacuees-article-1.2973582
When an act of God threatened to leave thousands of people without a home, a temple door opened to offer shelter. Shortly after hundreds of thousands of people living in the low-lying regions of the Feather River were evacuated due to flooding concerns over the swollen Lake Oroville, Sikh temples throughout the Sacramento, Calif., area welcomed evacuees, the L.A. Times reports.
On his temple’s influx of visitors, Nirmal Singh said, “This is their home. Our faith teaches us to help everyone. The poor, the hungry, it doesn’t matter who you are.”
The threat of catastrophic flooding brought scores of people who may not have typically congregated, together in a temple run by a population frequently misunderstood or subject to bigotry. Once word spread that up to 180,000 people would have to be evacuated to escape the threat of flooding, caused by a hole in the main spillway of the nation's tallest dam and the subsequent erosion of the dam's auxiliary spillway, Sikhs in Sacramento put out the call for supplies and volunteers.
It didn't take long, after Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg posted a list of temples that would open as shelters, for evacuees to arrive.
The 24-year-old Shri Guru Ravidass Temple was temporarily home to folks like Juan Cervantes, 38, a fruit picker on Central Valley farms, who came with his family. According to the L.A. Times, while Cervantes had encountered Sikhs before, he’d never stepped inside a temple.
The site notes that Cervantes nearly forgot to take off his shoes when entering the prayer hall, but he respectfully observed other Sikh religious customs including avoiding meat consumption — citing the Sikhs’ vegetarianism.“These people are just like me," Cervantes said. "I’m Catholic, but we have the same God. We have the same heart. The same hands.”
One group of evacuees who had brought pet cats and dogs stayed in a house beside the temple that's typically reserved for board meetings — because pets are not a feature of Sikh culture. One of these visitors, Kathy Flores, 66, said that the Sikhs fed them and even went “looking for dog food” for her.
“I’ve even had some of their spicy curry,” Flores added. Raj Kumar Sood, a truck driver and the temple’s board seceretary, said, “Our temples — all temples — always have a rule of having an open-door policy to house and feed anybody. That’s one of the most important teachings of our guru. But we’ve never seen a crowd like this.”
Sikhs of Rio Linda may see hundreds of visitors for holy day festivals, but during the week, their prayers typically attract only a few, the L.A. Times writes.
The Sikhs cooked up large portions of rice, lentils, cauliflower and spinach — and a bit of American cuisine as well, including vegetarian pizza pies, spaghetti and macaroni and cheese that were donated to the temple from a Sikh pizza shop owner. There also were packages of potato chips and cans of Dr Pepper soda.
Half of the nation’s 500,000 Sikhs live in California. Sikh presence in the Sacramento area dates back more than a century. The area counts 10 Sikh temples and 11,000 Sikh families. Since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Sikhs have found themselves targeted for abuse and violence, as some have mistaken them for Muslim extremists.
In 2012, a white supremacist killed six Sikhs in Oak Creek, Wis.
When the evacuation orders for the area south of Oroville Dam were lifted on Tuesday, Cervantes’ brother, Guillermo, took his time leaving — and said he’d return to the temple to “have another chance to say ‘thank you,’” the L.A. Times wrote.
When an act of God threatened to leave thousands of people without a home, a temple door opened to offer shelter. Shortly after hundreds of thousands of people living in the low-lying regions of the Feather River were evacuated due to flooding concerns over the swollen Lake Oroville, Sikh temples throughout the Sacramento, Calif., area welcomed evacuees, the L.A. Times reports.
On his temple’s influx of visitors, Nirmal Singh said, “This is their home. Our faith teaches us to help everyone. The poor, the hungry, it doesn’t matter who you are.”
The threat of catastrophic flooding brought scores of people who may not have typically congregated, together in a temple run by a population frequently misunderstood or subject to bigotry. Once word spread that up to 180,000 people would have to be evacuated to escape the threat of flooding, caused by a hole in the main spillway of the nation's tallest dam and the subsequent erosion of the dam's auxiliary spillway, Sikhs in Sacramento put out the call for supplies and volunteers.
It didn't take long, after Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg posted a list of temples that would open as shelters, for evacuees to arrive.
The 24-year-old Shri Guru Ravidass Temple was temporarily home to folks like Juan Cervantes, 38, a fruit picker on Central Valley farms, who came with his family. According to the L.A. Times, while Cervantes had encountered Sikhs before, he’d never stepped inside a temple.
The site notes that Cervantes nearly forgot to take off his shoes when entering the prayer hall, but he respectfully observed other Sikh religious customs including avoiding meat consumption — citing the Sikhs’ vegetarianism.“These people are just like me," Cervantes said. "I’m Catholic, but we have the same God. We have the same heart. The same hands.”
One group of evacuees who had brought pet cats and dogs stayed in a house beside the temple that's typically reserved for board meetings — because pets are not a feature of Sikh culture. One of these visitors, Kathy Flores, 66, said that the Sikhs fed them and even went “looking for dog food” for her.
“I’ve even had some of their spicy curry,” Flores added. Raj Kumar Sood, a truck driver and the temple’s board seceretary, said, “Our temples — all temples — always have a rule of having an open-door policy to house and feed anybody. That’s one of the most important teachings of our guru. But we’ve never seen a crowd like this.”
Sikhs of Rio Linda may see hundreds of visitors for holy day festivals, but during the week, their prayers typically attract only a few, the L.A. Times writes.
The Sikhs cooked up large portions of rice, lentils, cauliflower and spinach — and a bit of American cuisine as well, including vegetarian pizza pies, spaghetti and macaroni and cheese that were donated to the temple from a Sikh pizza shop owner. There also were packages of potato chips and cans of Dr Pepper soda.
Half of the nation’s 500,000 Sikhs live in California. Sikh presence in the Sacramento area dates back more than a century. The area counts 10 Sikh temples and 11,000 Sikh families. Since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Sikhs have found themselves targeted for abuse and violence, as some have mistaken them for Muslim extremists.
In 2012, a white supremacist killed six Sikhs in Oak Creek, Wis.
When the evacuation orders for the area south of Oroville Dam were lifted on Tuesday, Cervantes’ brother, Guillermo, took his time leaving — and said he’d return to the temple to “have another chance to say ‘thank you,’” the L.A. Times wrote.
