Responding to an invitation by District Collector N Prashanth on social media, around 500 volunteers turned up at the lake side.
A dirty lake next to a temple in Kozhikode, overlooked by many for long, got a face-lift this Republic Day.
Responding to an open invitation by District Collector N Prashanth on social media, around 500 volunteers turned up on Tuesday morning at Kollam Chira -- a lake located 25 km from the city.
The clean-up act took four solid hours. The huge lake, spanning nearly 14 acres, was choked with weeds and garbage.
And then the party began.
Mr Prashanth, who had rolled up his sleeves and joined the volunteers for the cleaning up, kept his promise -- of serving plates of hot biryani to all.
Biryani being cooked that was later served to the volunteers.
The food came from the funds allotted by the government to clean up water bodies, as part of preparedness for droughts.
Kozhikode district has been making news for its "Compassionate Kozhikode" platform - a brain child of Mr Prashanth.
"Compassionate Kozhikode" works as a volunteer base for socially productive work which are largely crowd-funded.
Operation Suleimani, under which the hungry are open to have a meal, no questions asked, or an online call for a donation drive for a mental hospital which was in a poor state are some of the projects that received an overwhelming response.
People worked for four hours to rid the lake of weed and garbage.