The Fifth Person was up dark and early one special morning on 20 June as we volunteered our time to Willing Hearts – a non-profit organization that provides daily meals and other support services to the underprivileged, the needy, and other marginalized members of society.
We reached Willing Hearts central kitchen at 5:00 am in the morning (still dark!) to start cooking meals that will be given to the needy later during the day. The target number of meals that day: 4,871. Wow! We got going immediately.
There were many ingredients that needed to be prepared before cooking began: vegetables, meat, eggs, rice, etc. We were assigned to different stations and started with our tasks.
Once the ingredients were ready, the cook began. We didn’t handle the huge woks in the kitchen (the staff and more experienced volunteers did those) but we did some heavy duty stuff ourselves cooking enough rice to feed over 4,000 people!
When all the food was cooked, it was place in large metal trays and sent to the serving station to be scooped and packed into neat lunch boxes that would be delivered to the needy in time for their lunch that day.
By 10:00 am, we finished for the day. Almost all the food was already cooked and being packed by this time and other streams of volunteers were also arriving at the centre to help with delivering the lunch to the needy throughout Singapore.
All in all, we spent more than five hours at Willing Hearts giving our best to prepare the 4,871 meals that were needed for that day. It was hard work, hot, and we had to be on our feet nearly the entire time but it was worth it knowing that your actions are directly helping someone who needs your support the most.
The most amazing thing is there are people who do this everyday for the needy at Willing Hearts. We know first-hand how tough and tiring it was to work in the kitchen for hours straight, so to have such wonderful human beings choosing to do this on a daily basis is just fantastic. We salute them!
So if you’re looking for other way to contribute to a charitable cause (besides monetarily) and undergo a deeply enriching and humbling experience at the same time, do consider being a volunteer at Willing Hearts! Many beautiful people there will thank you for your gift of giving 🙂
Blessings,
Kenji, Adam, Victor, Rusmin & Murphy
The Fifth Person
