Groceries For the Needies - Oct 2014

As we have obtained a list of needy families, we had interviewed the families in order to start our Grocery For The Needy Program. Out of the 11 families interviewed, 8 families are still in current situation, while 2 had moved out and 1 had passed away.  The remaining 8 families become our very first batch of recipients for the groceries and will receive the groceries on every first week of the alternate month. The next cycle will be in January 2015 as this should have been a November activity.

The family profiles are single mothers with 4-6 children, OKUs and old folks. Based on the interviews that we have conducted, they do have jobs or some family members that are working, but their income is just sufficient for monthly expenses. With rising costs, we hope our little contributions will ease their burden. While we hope to be able to continue this in the long term, we also hope they are able to improve their own standard of living.

I will leave the descriptions of the family in the Facebook photo album...

Bread..all the way from KL to Klang. Someone had it for breakfast the next morning! :)

We hope our small contribution will help to ease their burden in their daily life. My appreciation to who have given their time, money and effort to ensure this program goes smoothly! :) Thank you all - Cecilia, Dymphna, Ryen, Winson, Richard, Ivan, Jenny, Melvin, Jared and Simon who have made this program POSSIBLE! We will put them in our Back To School Program in December 2014 to reduce the burden of the family.

Groceries For the Needies - Sept 2014

Apologizes for the late entry update. For Sept 2014, groceries were sponsors from the team from GOC. As usual, we follow Tony on his monthly rounds to the needy homes located in Taman Sentosa.

First family - Single mother with 3 kids. Husband died of heart attack. She has weakness on her legs and current under medication. She is also a registered OKU but help from govt is insufficient.

2nd family - only the daughter is around as the parents are working. We gave the groceries to the children. According to uncle Tony they rent the house RM400 / month and parents salary can't covered their expenses. 

3rd family - parents was not around as they were working. They have 6 children in the family.

4th family - daughter & old mother. Daughter 45 yrs old and has 2nd stage breast cancer. The house tend to get flooded during flood season, hence the raised wall.

5th family - the family need to take care of their 18 years old OKU son. Parents with 4 children.

6th family - single mother with 3 kids.

7th family - Single mother with 6 children. Her husband died a long time ago when their twin daughters were 3 months old.

8th family - The family (single mother) need to take care of their bedridden son (accident) for 8 years. He just recently had his operation on his head to put back the skull. Operation was delayed for a long time due to his head conditions and bureaucratic red tapes.

9th family - Chindian family with lovely kids. Only 3 kids stay with them, another 2 kids send to church home. Husband working as a lorry driver earning less than RM1500.

10th family - Single mother with 4 sons. Husband drug addicted, passed away in jail. She's half blind  unable to work due to her conditions. She moved from another home to this location due to cheaper rental. Current room rental is RM200.

Special thanks to GOC members who have fully sponsored the event and Ms Ong who updated all the family profiles. 

Groceries for Orang Asli in Kampung Sg Tiang, Gerik - Sept 2014

For September's project, we sponsored 52 Orang Asli families, located at Sg. Tiang, Gerik. After the usual fund raising, the big day arrived. For this trip, we have a team of 16 volunteers. We were required to registered prior to event as name list needs to be submitted to the army post before going into the Orang Asli settlement. As the direct journey from Kl will take 4 hours, we decide to make it a 2 day trip.

We departed from KL for a 2 hours journey to Ipoh with a convoy of 5 cars, and purchased all the groceries in Tesco Ipoh before proceed to Gerik to send the 52 packs of 10kg rice and 52 trays of eggs to the jetty. It took us another 2 hours to reach the jetty, and unloading took awhile as bringing down the rice to the jetty is no easy walk. Once the major hurdles are cleared, we travel back to Ipoh for the night. Special thanks to Dr Azma and Roshidah for the trip arrangement and logistics.

Crazy people buying in bulk .... !

Loaded and ready to go

Heading in to jetty

Yeah.. finally arrived!

Arriving at the jetty

Boat for rent.. bring you around to fish

Long way down

Loading the rice to the boat

On our way back, we saw a giant rat..as big as an elephant!

The next day... yeah... heading in.. "business class"

Our "cargo" boat ...

Arriving at the settlement

All excited....

Revisiting the previous trip...

Arrived yesterday

Packing the items...

Packed and ready to be distributed

Ice breaking..

Giving out the groceries

Dr Azma reading out the recipients' name

The village

Thank you to all the sponsors who have contributed and volunteers who have made the trip. It was a memorable experience for all and we hope we will be able to make more of these projects. See you in our next event...

For more photos, check it out here.