FOOD RESCUE SENGKANG FUND RAISING INITIATIVE

FOOD RESCUE SENGKANG FUND RAISING INITIATIVE

Food wastage. This is one of the hottest issues right here in Singapore, and around the world, apart from upcycling, reducing plastic usage, forest destruction etc. Just look around you, or in your own neighbourhood. There’s food wastage everywhere. It can be rather appalling when you see the amount of food wastage as some communities worldwide are suffering from major scarcity of food.

We at Food Rescue Sengkang (FRSK) are just ordinary people doing our best to live a life of less wastage. With this in mind, we breathe life to our mission statement ’Feed the people, not the bins’. This has become our daily mantra. With this mantra in place, we have managed to create a wave of positive change within our community.

Today, we have seen an increasing number of people within our community partaking in our food rescue events. The queue gets longer every week. It is a wonder to behold, and we are glad to have been the catalyst for this shift in mindset.

Our main priority is those who have fallen through the cracks as we all go about our daily lives. This group of people in our community and, in addition to support given to them, may still face difficulty in putting food on the table. Every bit of help given to them is a blessing as they can provide just enough food for their families. Food security is crucial, especially in dire times like these (COVID-19 pandemic) where many have lost a huge amount of income from unemployment or a significant salary reduction. Many of whom we assist are lower to middle income families who generally live from hand to mouth. They are our targetted audience, we as a community, should come together to help lift up when they stumble in life.

On an average weekly basis, we rescued 20 to 40 pallets of perishables and non-perishable items, weighing an average of 16 to 35 tonnes. With this incredible volume of food, we feed an estimated figure of 600 to 900 families or more. That works out to an incredulous 2,000 to 4,000 people.

We also rescue and give out bread daily in the late evenings, amounting to 1,000 meals weekly. For food and vegetables, we can provide around 3,000 to 5,000 meals on a weekly basis.

As we continue our food rescue mission, we would also like to seek support to raise funds for our initiative. As we are all volunteers, we do not receive any funding for all our current logistics and manpower costs. We have self-funded our rescue missions to-date.

Alas, even as we extend our hands to help the community, our hands fall short of the funds to run our rescue missions to the fullest. We are now hoping to raise funds to be used for operational costs, including rental of warehouse space for storage, logistics, transportation, etc. Our targetted amount is an estimated $100,000.

We hope that we (FRSK), and the bigger community at large, can come together to raise this fund and continue to extend our assistance to those in need. We would rather feed the people than the bins, give food to the needy and reduce as much food wastage as possible.

Come along with us on our journey, check us out on
facebook.com/groups/273475443657924