Nowadays, people just focus on their work and don't know about what is happening on the world. Even they have spare time, they will just go out and play or rest, they will not think about what can they do to help change the world. The author of The Blue Sweater gave up her banking job and went to Africa to help change the world. I hope one day I can be her but at this moment, I need to find a job first to earn a living. Maybe after 10 years, I will go out and explore or simply doing some volunteer work in Hong Kong.
Today, I went to the LA Food Bank to do voluntary service. Their mission is to mobilize resources to fight hunger in the community. You will not know that one in six people in Los Angeles County experience food insecurity. If we donate $1, we can provide 4 meals to them already. If we try not to drink Starbucks every week, we can already provide at least 60 meals to those who are in need. I really like the idea of LA Food Bank because they will contact different manufactures, retailers and farmers and see whether they have any food that are nearly expire or not in good condition (packaging). My job is to check whether the condition of the food is ok or not and then categorize it and put them into the box. It is not a hard task. Every one can do it. I highly recommend you guys to be a volunteer for the LA Food Bank. It is just 15mins drive from USC, and the service hour is just 3 hours per section.
The disparity of wealth in Hong Kong is quite serious. There are a lot of people in Hong Kong can't afford to buy private housing. The lower class families don't have enough money to buy food for 3 meals because their salaries are too low and part of it already goes to the rent, and the remaining part is for transportation, their kids' tuition fee etc. There are a few food banks in Hong Kong but they are all in small scale. It is quite difficult to run a food bank in Hong Kong comparing to the US because government didn't give fully support to those organizations, lack of volunteers, rely on private funds, once those private companies or organization don't donate money, the food bank may close down. Also the rent in Hong Kong is very high, is hard to rent a place to accommodate all those food. Moreover, retailers and hotels tend not to donate food to the banks because they afraid there will be liability problem like if the poor got sick after eating those food, the retailers or hotel need to bear the responsibility.
So maybe in 10 years time, I want to do something that related to Food Banks. I want to let more people know how Food Banks can help solve the hunger problem, and educate the people, both at work and at school, let them know why everyone should have the responsibility to help change the world because WE ARE ALL PART OF THE WORLD.
Ways you could take the next step toward making a world we dare to imagine together:
ReplyDelete1. Maybe educate people about how to manage food banks in areas like Hong Kong and help to eliminate their concerns about the risks involved in the management
2. Collaborate with government or relevant institutions to introduce food bank to the area
3. Educate people about the meaningfulness of contributing as volunteers to make the world a better place so the volunteer number will increase
Yes, i agree making a world a better place is not just to focus on poor country but also everywhere
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your post, I am thinking about doing work for the food bank. It sounds like a great idea for someone like me who would like to participate but not interested in putting too much time into it. I think you should think about spreading the word and encouraging people to bring their friends and family. Sometimes I shy away from things like that because of that.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the idea to work with the government and connect with people in the government who cares about these issues. Again there may be concerns like if the food are clean or spoiled. It is important to learn from successful food bank so it would be helpful to build relationships with food banks in LA and bring experiences back to Hong Kong.