Food delivery to the homeless with Kechara Soup Kitchen

Who would have thought that in such a vibrant town, in another dark side of the city, there will be so many homeless people roaming the street after most businesses are closed? Homeless? What? Not surprising actually. If you go down to the street and look for them, with eyes wide open and not oblivious to your usual surrounding ie keeping a straight eyes while driving, you will see them. A lot.

While Kechara Soup Kitchen is just feeding a weekly 650 packets on their rounds and catering to about 200 people on a daily basis at their soup kitchen center, there are other soup kitchens who are also doing the deliveries and feeding. There are many reasons why someone can become a homeless. We are not there to judge, however, it is best you come down to the street with us and experience it first hand. If your heart is not open at the first round, come for the 2nd, and the 3rd, and the 4th and the 5th. You will then start to understand.

Any kind of people can step as close to be a homeless in a split second. You will have to come for the briefing and do the delivery first hand and you will then know it's not just drug addicts or the mentally challenged that ended up on the street. There are indeed poverty, with people doing their works as usual, barely making it from their salary , and have to depend on free food given out from charity organisations that includes churches and mosques as well. Another example, a friend was following for a delivery round and after a tiring night, the friend squat down on the street and start to have a smoke. I look at her and .. hey...if I take off your shirt, you are just the same. So you see, we are all just the same. It's just the shirt that makes a difference. When I say that, I don't mean to embarrass the friend, for this friend knows pretty well what am trying to say. And we learned that we should be grateful to be able to be the giving hands, for tonight.

What keeps me going and coming back to this cause is not because of doing this for fun, although am still trying to do this in a fun way. What am saying is when we do stuffs like this, ie charity, beside team work, there must not be any ego. Not one hand is better than the other. It is the collective effort that makes it or break it. Towards a common goal and together doing it in any way we think we can to help the less fortunate.

Secondly, there was a round where after giving the food to the people, I went into a fast food outlet for the bathroom. I saw a client sitting at a corner in the fast food outlet. It was very comfortable with the air cond at full blast and it was actually drizzling outside, making it more colder. Seeing her just after her late night work, assuming this because of the attire she was wearing and the stuff she was carrying, she opened the pack of rice and it was a really slow gesture. She prayed on the food and was giving thanks. When I came out from the toilet, I saw another homeless, this time taking small bites on the biscuit that was in one of the delivery round, and each bite is savoured slowly and with eyes closed. I don't know what's in their mind, but that visual to me was so empowering and it touches me deep down that at that moment I feel like breaking up and cry because of all the sudden energies that came to me. All the things I ever learned and experienced was just summed up in that powerful visual. Gratitude, appreciation, kindness, compassionate, etc. EVERYTHING.

So with that empowering visual, it keeps me going. It keeps me want to do good, no matter alone or with others. Still thinking of ways to contribute more.

People, if you stumble upon this post, these are the things that I think is suitable for the homeless. You can also come up with your own initiatives as well.

1) Soap. You don't have to give a big bar, those small ones like from the hotel rooms are good enough. If you have connections or people in charge of hotels that you can talk to, maybe they can donate those used soap that hotel guests used but not all are used. They can cut off the layers to come out to the new layer and wrapped it up again and donate to the homeless. Or if you go to hotel, and have been collecting those soap/toiletries like toothbrush or shampoo that you haven't been using, give them up :)

2) Medicines for skin ailments or wounds

3) Used clothes ie shirt, t-shirts , etc that you don't need anymore but still in good condition

4) Biscuits, fruits, mineral water etc

5) Cash to KSK or any other organisation to continue their works

6) Towels/umbrellas/recycle  bags etc

7) Click or copy paste this url to your browser and join me and friends on this collective effort in contributing to charitable good deeds via facebook to KSK http://www.facebook.com/events/207466302685196/

All works in KSK are inspired by H.E Tsem Tulku Rinpoche and you can find him here 
You can also find him at his blog here
And last but not least,  you can also join KSK on facebook , here. 

Related blog post : Here

Homeless People in KL.

Who would have thought , with occasional highlights in the media on how our government is spending and spending to make this n that , build this n that and developing this n that, with billions spent to be one of the so called first world (with 3rd world mentality??) country, you will be forgiven if you haven't know about any other people's sufferings and other misfortunes. One of it is of course, as per topic, the homeless people right here at KL. I was asking for donations one day at my working place and one curious well to do looking woman was listening and suddenly asked, "Got homeless people in kl?? You sure? Well...I want to follow and see if it's true."

What an ugly sight that if you see it with your own eyes, you will be wondering, the next street at Jln Bukit Bintang where people party all night and also got into fight because of petty issues, here is a totally different kind of breeds, breeding in the heart of the city. You might start to wonder too, what is the government doing spending billions on the unnecessary whereas those money , or half of the billions that they spent frivolously , if it is utilized for charities or helping the people in plight who are also fellow Malaysians, will certainly cost lesser and have better appreciation.

There are a few outreach programs here in KL, notably Pertiwi, Rotary, Fungates, Street Fellowship, from the churches and of course, the loudest now that is always being featured on media, Kechara Soup Kitchen. (http://www.kechara.com) So by all means, I was joining in as volunteer with Kechara and doing the rounds on every Saturday night. <--- I do skip if am tired or busy ;)

So u think ur bed is not comfy? So u think ur food is not tasty? And so u think u have no money??

The guy on the right, Mr Anthony, who came from Kulim, after a hard day work, was robbed of his income and stabbed at the stomach.He is penniless, staggering with pain and in a big depression. His family is poor and he can't afford a bus ticket back. Johnny highlight his plight back to Kechara, hope they are swift in helping him. 

Many people will always try to reason, why do they end up homeless in the first place? Must be their own fault and their own doings that they end up like that. Why should I help? I don't even have enough to feed my own! Bla bla..yada yada. Actually there are many reasons why someone will be homeless. It can also happen to anyone without warning and such. Some reasons include looking for a better  life at Kl, well u can't blame them as Kl had been painted like a place with a lot of pot golds for everyone. But not everyone is that lucky in finding their pot of golds right? 

Some of course, runaway from family, some got thrown out by family, some really asked for it , etc etc. There are young and old, all races, all patterns all behaviors. People if have a choice will not choose to be anything lower, or as the saying, will not choose to be bald if they have hair. If you say it's karma, well we don't have to add the burden to their karma. we can always help to lighten their burden right?

Most of them when we deliver their food, they are very grateful and thankful. They also praise us for being dedicated in our effort, rain or shine we will be there. However, i think i am the one that should be grateful and thankful for being given a chance to serve humanity. it's not so much bout the food, really. It's further than that. there are other feelings involved and the experience u get out of this cannot be replace by any amount of money u own. even u might be rich, but if u do not give back to society, you will feel empty and meaningless. ur money can't be brought along to the grave thou. 

And on a more lightening note, they even share the food among themselves who did not get any food. Some rejected our food when they have eaten and asked to be given to others who have not eaten. This just tells you, human basically should be caring and sharing.

Anyway, we are always short of food as more and more people are put behind by developments and made homeless. It really doesn't matter , well at this post anyway, don't reason why they are homeless for it will just give u an excuse not to help or be the righteous helper that u are. we don't reason why and how they got there. We just help whatever we can.  U might think, hey how much a RM2.50 for a pack of vegetarian rice can help? Well it can help a lot. 

U see, me n friends each of us say 10people. Each of us commit a comfortable amount of rice packet for the once a week of saturdays. say, i commit 5 packs a week = 20 packs a month. sometimes 25pack a month as some months got 5 weeks. So say 20 times RM2.50 is equivalent to RM50. But when it's collective effort, say 10 people giving 20 packs a month, that will be 200 mouths being fed a month. some will commit more, some commit less, but help in small ways lead to big ways. 

If even RM50 is too much for you, you can commit less, no obligation! You can also join in as volunteers, no problems! Every one can contribute in their own special ways as well, no problem, be it by spreading this out, or telling to others about this, share this, give your time and energy, no problem at all. 

And on one last note, kechara also needs funds on their upcoming animal sanctuary for the homeless and abused animals. So if u prefer doing something for animals, you can also get in touch with kechara or come to Wow Wow Pets at OUG ( see the facebook links for WowWowPets ) to make a donation, or even mail me back to arrange.

Hmm...I wonder where are they taking their shelter when it rains...while am blogging this.