Inspired by Mother Teresa, Anand Bheemarasetti founded Project Finding Calcutta to help others serve the poor and lonely in everyday life.
Newsroom (08/01/2026 Gaudium Press ) In 1996, a young boy in the bustling port city of Visakhapatnam, India, knelt to kiss the feet of a visiting nun. She was already revered around the world: Mother Teresa of Calcutta. For ten-year-old Anand Bheemarasetti, that brief encounter would burn a lifelong fire into his heart.
“It was a beautiful encounter which never left me,” he recalls today. Decades later, that memory continues to shape his vocation — though not one of the priesthood, but of action.
Even as he built a successful career as a software engineer, Bheemarasetti found himself drawn again and again to Mother Teresa’s example of love for “the poorest of the poor.” He began living that call through mission work with FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students), guiding students on service trips to India, where they volunteered with the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta.
“The sisters from Calcutta became close friends,” he said. Going back year after year was transformative — but also unsettling. “At a certain point, I started asking myself: What am I doing taking people to India every year while Mother Teresa wanted people to find their own Calcutta right where they are?”
Planting a Mission at Home
That question became the seed of a new ministry. In 2019, Anand, his wife Lindsey, and their four children decided to treat the streets of Dallas as their own “Calcutta.” They began visiting nursing homes, speaking with the homeless downtown, and spending weekends serving others.
Soon, their friends joined in. Local parish groups asked how they could help. From this grassroots start grew Project Finding Calcutta, a lay ministry dedicated to helping ordinary Catholics discover their own local mission fields.
“You don’t have to worry about where you want to go serve,” Anand said. “It’s nice to have someone show the ropes.”
That simple formula has taken off. In 2025 alone, Project Finding Calcutta mobilized more than 2,500 volunteers, and the team hopes to expand to new cities and dioceses in the coming years.
A Movement That Meets People Where They Are
At the SEEK 2026 conference in Fort Worth, Texas — one of the largest Catholic gatherings for young adults — the Project Finding Calcutta booth drew steady interest. Volunteer Kristin Velasquez said that the ministry challenges common assumptions about mission work.
“Oftentimes we think about going international,” she noted, “but sometimes it’s the person in your office building working 9 to 5 who needs Christ more than that other person internationally.”
To drive that point home, the group’s tent at SEEK invited attendees to write a letter to a prisoner on death row in Texas — an act of compassion that brought the idea of “finding Calcutta” vividly close to home.
“Sometimes we can be in our bubbles,” Velasquez said. “There are people right now on death row, and it could be their last day. Something we really want to do is bring Christ into all those different pockets.”
The Power of Service Saturdays
Each week, Project Finding Calcutta holds “Service Saturdays,” partnering with parishes and nonprofits to visit nursing homes, comfort the sick, or simply talk to homeless neighbors across Dallas.
“It’s humbling and life-changing,” Velasquez said. “Sometimes they have Christ in their hearts way more than you do — and they’re the ones preaching to us.”
She admitted that ministry also reshaped her comfort zone. “A lot of us are uncomfortable facing people who are sick or on the streets,” she said. “But after serving, now when I’m stopped at a red light and see someone asking for help, I roll down my window. I just ask their name. That simple conversation — that recognition — is what people need. To be seen, to be called by their name.”
A Missionary’s Journey
Among the new faces drawn to the mission is Matthew Tull, a recent convert to Catholicism who moved from Boston to Dallas to serve full-time.
“It’s been one of the best things that’s happened in my life,” said Tull. “Being able to find Christ not only in the Mass but also in the poor — recognizing that the Son of Man had no place to lay his head — is beautiful. It’s another way to encounter Him.”
He encourages others not to be intimidated. “It’s not hard; we’re serving people made in the image of God,” he said. “Even a simple conversation can change their day and show them love.”
Calcutta — at Home and Abroad
Though most of its energy is local, Project Finding Calcutta still keeps a connection to the city that inspired it. Each spring break, the group leads college students to Calcutta to serve with the Missionaries of Charity and pray at Mother Teresa’s tomb. Summers bring internships for young adults in Dallas, blending service and prayer into a formative experience of daily mercy.
For Anand Bheemarasetti, every new initiative is a continuation of that sacred moment decades ago when he met a saint. “Even though Mother Teresa is now in heaven,” he said, “her sisters are continuing her work as religious, and my hope is that we, as laity, continue the work as well.”
For more information or volunteer opportunities, visit ProjectFindingCalcutta.com.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from National Catholic Register
Related Images:
