A Day of Charity

Sarawak Society For The Blind Sibu Division Branch organized their annual open house event today. In conjunction with the open house, a charity sales was being held within the blind center compound.

As always, my company's recreational club was given the responsibility to sell off the charity sales coupon to company staffs as well as outsiders. As I am one of the committee member this year, I had to take up this responsibility tried to sell off as many coupons as I can. I felt very lucky one of my colleague who is really supportive willing to buy 10 books of coupon from me without much hesitation and that costs him a hundred bucks. He stated in his blog that he used the fuel rebate money taken from the government to do this as a way to help the government doing more good thing. I really salute him for this.

As for myself, I only bought 2 books of coupon worth RM20. I know that's not much, but I think that's all I can afford at this moment. Charity is not all about the amount you can give, but the sincerity of your heart to help the needs, isn't it?

[Charity Sales Coupon]

It stated in the coupons that the open house and charity sales will be started at 9am till 12.30pm. However, when I arrived at the venue before 9am, the road around the blind center already being jammed by the cars. People attending the charity event parked their cars along the roadside to the left and right of blind center. Kutian Memorial Park opposite the center was also full with cars. This was really out of my expectation. I never expect the public respond was so good.

[Cars parking opposite the blind center and along the roadside]

[Cars parking along the roadside]

When I just about to stepped into the blind center where the charity sales was held, some people already came out from there with full handed.

[Entrance to the charity sales]

The crowds inside the building even shocked me! Every corner inside the building was flooded by poeple who were busy looking for suitable item to purchase with their coupons.

[The tremendous crowds out of my expectation]

As for me, I just walked around by my own. This is the first time I attended such charity sales so I tried to adapt myself to the environment. I was looking at the crowds, the environment and also looking for suitable items to spend my RM20 coupons. I just discovered RM20 coupons really couldn't do much as most of the items were sold in quite high price. Hey, brother! This is a charity sales ok? You can't expect the selling items were at market price, can you? Oh ya, I met my colleague who bought 10 books of coupon from me I mentioned just now. He was busy shopping and snapping photos like I did!

[Stall that selling raw chicken and eggs]

There were quite a number of stalls set up by social organizations and corporates for this charity sales. The items sold are various. There were stalls selling raw foods like eggs and chicken. Some stalls were selling local delights like lemang, curry chicken, roasted ducks, Nasi Lemak, Pau and so on and some selling snacks and cookies. There were also stalls selling fruits.

[Stall selling cookies and snacks]

[Various stalls]

There were 2 stalls which caught my attention because the items sold are more unique. One was selling decorative plants and another selling cute soft toys.

[Decorative plants for sale]

[Soft toys including Snoopy and Winnie The Pooh were on sale too!]

[Best decorated stall in my opinion]

When I was walking around, I discovered there was a staircase leading to the upper floor but it was not written what was going on up there. However, I saw the crowds moving up and down the staircase so I decided to take a look.

[Staircase leading to upper floor]

Actually, there was a room upstair selling cane products made by the blind people staying in this center. There were various shapes of cane basket to choose from.



I was quite amazed with their handcraft skills. These people can't see yet they can come out with such complicated handcraft. So, I decided to find myself a basket to show my appreciation on their hard works.

After some searching, I found this basket. It costs RM20, exactly the value of the coupon I had. So I decided to buy it. It is suitable to be fruits container.

[I bought this cane made basket for RM20]

[The handcraft is nice and good to be fruits container]

Ok, now I had go around all the stalls available and I had spent all the coupons I had on hand, so I guessed it is the end of my journey to Blind Center for charity purposes. Before went back, I stopped at free-flow MILO corner to get myself a cup of delicious MILO to drink.

[Free-flow MILO corner]

[Yummy! A cup of MILO drink for myself!]

The experience of doing charity is good although it is just a small one!


++++++ p/s: ++++++

On my way back, I stopped at Union of Chinese Association building which is not far from Sibu Blind Center because I discovered that there were some events going on at the place. Didn't actually know what the event was, I just stopped by to snap some photos before I continued my journey back home.