Food Drive – 1st time

One of my deepest regret when leaving Houston, that I failed to spare my time volunteering the Food for Life. Their quote of “All it takes is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a piece of fresh fruit, and one half-pint of juice to keep a child from going hungry for a day” echoes in my head, knocking my heart every time a little kid approached my car during traffic light stop in a busy intersection – begging for money.

Yet someone said you can’t just give them money to release yourself from the guilty feeling of being in better-off situation – arguing that giving them money will endorse those kids to stay with their hopeless street life as long as people keep giving them money. However, “not giving money and not doing anything about it” just doesn’t feel…. right!

Well, after weeks or months of planning to give it a try – Kunto and I finally did it last Saturday. Helped by mbak Jasih and mbak Sumi to prepare the food, we made 42 packages of Nasi Bungkus and packed milk. At 4pm Kunto drove the car heading to the bus station of Kampung Rambutan – and it was our first stop. We distributed about 25 food packages before we proceed to Taman Mini – Pondok Gede intersection to distribute the rest.

At those two distribution points, well we got a little scared by the number of people came and surrounded our car asking for more… we wanted to give the food only to the kids only but some adults insisted to get it for themselves. We run out of packages but some little kids haven’t got theirs, and they kept begging for it and we really felt bad for them. I am terribly sorry dear…. we’ll come back next week Insya Allah.

We learn our biggest lesson, for the next time – bring more and focus on one place.

We don’t have any picture for the first trial – apparently two people (one drove the car and the other passed the food) are not enough to do the distribution work. And 42 packages are simply not enough – and the number means nothing but another kid sleeping well that night with tummy full of proper and healthy food. Amiin.