Avoid donating cooking oil, soy sauce or instant noodles to the needy – vouchers preferred, says volunteer group

Local welfare organisation ‘Keeping Hope Alive’, whose struggle is to provide the underprivileged with a better quality of life, suggested that people should have a greater awareness of the goods they donate, especially with food items.

In a Facebook post on August 14, the organisation wrote, “Cooking oil, soya sauce, instant noodles or even canned food are common items left at the door by volunteer groups for the needy. The items then accumulate over time, collecting dust or expires. This means wasted resources.”

They explained that instant noodles or canned food are not always the healthiest of choices, especially for old folks with health issues.

When the volunteers spoke to the old folks to find out their needs, some showed them their grocery items and said: “They left these at my door. I don’t even cook.”

However, after giving out vegetarian porridge once, an elderly lady offered a piece of advice, “The porridge is very nice. You know, so many volunteers give us food items and hang them at my door. I think what works best for us is NTUC vouchers so we can buy what we need.”

The group also added that should they discover a family in need of grocery items, their volunteers will take them to the nearest shops, so they can choose what they need, avoiding wastage.

Recently, An elderly couple who had no mattress to sleep on made an unusual request to ‘Keeping Hope Alive’. They only want one single-sized mattress.

Lee Siew Yian, a volunteer said that upon entering the house to assess the living conditions of the couple, she wrote, “I entered the house, there is NO mattress insight. The floor is EMPTY”.

The elderly lady told her she sleeps on a very thin mattress–which looked to be more like a mat–and her husband on a chair.

Despite all this, when asked how many mattresses the couple needed, the woman only asked for one. /TISG

Elderly couple plead for single-sized mattress from welfare organization