In the writings of Bhaktivinoda Thakur we find:
"It is an utmost duty of every householder to honor his guests, help the POOR and fallen, and try to associate with saintly persons. Due to the lack of proper education and training nowadays people do not consider honoring guests and helping the poor as a duty."
Srila Prabhupada’s Srimad Bhagavatam purport (1.14.43): "It is the duty of a householder to feed first of all the children, the old members of the family, the brahmanas and the invalids. Besides that, an ideal householder is required to call for any unknown hungry man to come and dine before he himself goes to take his meals. He is required to call for such a hungry man thrice on the road. The neglect of this prescribed duty of a householder, especially in the matter of the old men and children, is unpardonable."
Srila Prabhupada wanted prasadam distributed widely in the villages of India through traveling parties, not just in the temples: Prabhupada: "Now I am especially concerned to distribute grains, rice, wheat in the form of dal and rice prasadam to hungry people all over India... If the people do not even have sufficient food they will not even be able to receive spiritual instructions. So I am hopeful that if we can widely distribute free food-stuffs to the people of India, by giving it out at our centers, as well as our traveling parties to villages, we will win over the whole country and the whole world by this activity on Krishna's behalf."
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