Yayasan Suria JB (YSJB) – An unusual & unexpected request fulfilled!
Someone once asked me this:
What in the world does YSJB don’t do?
Yes, we do everything and anything under the sun that can help humanity.
Among the things we have been doing include:
Baby adoption, pregnant girls, paying for baby deliveries and match-making, undertaker-related business (we pay for people who do not have money to bury the dead, recommend people to undertakers) – indeed someone once remarked that YSJB is providing ‘cradle-to-grave service.’ Yes – we do!
Collecting preloved items are also one of our many services – from piano, to beds, to cupboards, to TVs, to kitchen utensils, etc. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure – nothing is wasted and to the Poor & Needy, the flood victims these stuffs are like ‘gold’ to them.
In the midst of collecting all these preloved items, we do get ‘trash’ which we give to an Aunty nearby our office in Jalan Bakawali, Johor Jaya. She sells what we give her to a recycled company and uses the money to pay for her house rental.
People think NGOs/volunteers like us know everything and they even call us to chase away evil spirits – we do too, asking them which religion they are in and we get our respective contacts to sort them out.
We also get calls from people asking us to find their children partners in life and we do too – match making! However, with one condition – we don’t guarantee they get babies!
Ha ha.
Never a dull moment in YSJB with so many things to do but this particular one is the first time we are into it. We never say ” No” to any requests even though we do not know what to do. We always say “Yes” and then figure out a way. In YSJB, we don’t take “No” for an answer – nothing is impossible for us!
That’s the spirit we have and we tell our volunteers that “we do anything and everything with a ‘never-say-die’ attitude.
We got a call from a company, lorry overturned with lots of soft drinks, isotonic drinks.
“Do you want?”
“Yes”
Off I went to the warehouse, loaded the drinks in my Toyota Hilux, full to the brim, on the way back, a quick posting on our YSJB’S volunteer chat group, 4 volunteers were at office/store to help unload, wash as the drinks were slightly ‘dirty’ due to the overturned lorry. The drinks were placed in big bags and as no volunteers were around that day (30/5/2022), I loaded them myself from the warehouse.
It took 3 ladies 5 hours to wash, wipe, dry and arrange them on the racks at our store.
A total of 267 bottles of small ones(500ml) and 104 bottles of big ones(1.5l) were salvaged and to be given out to our clients.
It’s was 4.30 pm then and the first batch of the drinks went to a Home. To the people in the Home, the drinks are a ‘luxury’, something for them to enjoy for they hardly have a chance to savour such drinks. The smiles on their faces made our day!
Some of the drinks are expiring in Aug 2022, some in Sept 2022 and all will be given out soon – to Homes and to those on our food bank lists.
I don’t know what we shall be involved next but come what may, we are game for anything – facing challenges as they come, never a dull moment being a volunteer at YSJB!