Round Table Singapore has picked up the habit to do some volunteer work and this time the members of Round Table 3 (in formation) visited Willing Hearts Kitchen that is located on the east coast side, not too far from Paya Lebar MRT.
This morning the team consisted of Vinay, Alexis, Petri, and Pavi. We met up at the gates already by 5.30 am, which was nicely early for a productive Saturday morning. Some of us come from close by, some from CBD area one even from the west coast. As we were about to start, we still had plenty of time for sunrise, which meant that the temperature was still nicely cooler than it would be in a few hours from that as the sun starts to heat up us again. Time for us helping out at the Willing Hearts Kitchen.
Early morning at the kitchen
As we entered, we were happily greeted inside the kitchen and at that time there were not yet many other volunteers around, however that was about to change quite quickly thereafter as more helping hands started to arrive. In the beginning, we did a few random tasks, mostly muscle work by carrying heavier food containers to different locations to make it easier for the more resident helping hands to proceed with their cooking preparations. Soon though we were receiving more dedicated tasks and Alexis took part of cooking some food in the beginning and the rest of started to take care of a giant pile of big raw rice bags that needed to be shifted to another place in the facilities and also to be redistributed from the factory packed canvas rice bags to smaller bags, which would later be distributed to construction workers around Singapore. The task at first seemed to be an easy one, but as we started to pick up the heavy and big rice bags on a trolley and move them to another location, we knew that it was going to need few more helping hands than we had to get it done efficiently.
A couple of more volunteers had just arrived at the site and we asked them to help us with the task and as they gladly accepted the request, we all were quickly on our way to proceed with this mission. As the sun started to rise on the horizon, it started to get quickly warmer, we started to experience this labour-intensive task was about to give us a great workout for the day. A few hours later we had cracked up all the big rice bags and had made a couple of hundred smaller bags of them that still weighed over several kilos each.
Our work was about to be completed for the day as we handed over the bags to the Willing Hearts Kitchen staff for further distribution in Singapore as they were also to distribute the thousands of ready-made food portions as well.
Sharing experiences afterwards
By now the clock started to be around 9 am in the morning, we felt like the day had already been quite long, and after all the practical workout we just had it was time to eat some breakfast to keep us going for the rest of the day. What would be better than strolling down to a nearby hawker and enjoy some local breakfast delights such as kopi o kosong, kaya toast with eggs as some of the dishes we indulged.
The day was still about to begin and we felt we had accomplished a lot already and with our bellies full, we decided to head back to our homes and continue with the weekend. It was a great experience and I am confident we will do it again. Until next time.
