Yayasan Suria JB (YSJB) – Service to humanity is an addiction!
Yes, you didn’t read this wrongly. After helping the Poor & Needy for the past 30 or so, I can testify to this that doing good for others is not a duty, it’s a JOY for it increases your health and happiness.
The good and happy hormones circulating in your body when you do good is immeasurable – perhaps it was partly why I am now fully cleared of 3rd stage lung cancer when some 20 years ago one lobe of my lungs was removed. We have a total of 5 lobes, 2 on the left and 3 on the right.
Now, I have 1 lobe on the left and 3 lobes on the right. I don’t feel anything less than anybody.
When you have the passion to serve the Poor & Needy, you put “Others Before Self (OBS)”, you get incredible energy to just go on and on without feeling tired. Energy from within, just like a ‘spring’ inside you with the energy never runs dry!
That day, I had a young volunteer(about 35 years old) who followed me around for hardly 4 hours and he complained about being tired. He asked me to drop him off where I picked him up.
It was because he had no passion/interest in helping/serving – a torture to him as of he was ‘forced’ to do the job.
My daily routine starts at 9.00 am, ending at 6.30 pm daily, with things to do all the time once on the road (hungry stomachs have no holidays, so do I, and I enjoy serving) and covering some 5,000 km a month in the 4WD Toyota Hilux. Dead tired on reaching home, fully drained out physically and mentally.
When time permits or when I have the inspiration to write, I do so quickly (average of about 2 hours writing a story) before hitting my head on the pillow.
I spend about 2 hours daily in the morning doing administrative work (writing receipts which must be signed individually as required by Income Tax Department, no computer-generated receipts, posting hard copies of income tax exempted receipts to donors, scanning receipts to donors, etc) and replying to comments/queries from supporters/donors as my WhatsApp broadcasts go to some 3,300 people. Wishing “Happy birthday” to supporters/donors is also part of my job, in short, I got my hands full all the time but it is a real pleasure to serve.
I do a lot of shopping, checking for the best deal, stretching the ringgit as the money is from the public and we are accountable for every cent spent – like Ensure milk which we buy 42 tins monthly, I can just go and buy at whatever price but we check around all the pharmacies/Chinese medical shop for the best deal and sometimes, it can be as high as RM8 a tin. RM8 x 42 tins(RM336) is a lot of money which can go on to buy a lot of “goodies” for the Poor & Needy.
We too have an office/store to man – people bringing in items to the office, walk-in enquiry, walk-in donors, sorting out preloved items. All these are manned by volunteers and being volunteers, handling them is “an art”, otherwise not being able to handle them well will result in you having nobody to help you.
2 groups of volunteers here. 1 group manning the office, mainly women and one group, following me in the Hilux running outside.
Coordinating, rescheduling and reorganizing are part and parcel of our daily routine, we are always nimble, adapting to the evolving situations daily.
A lot of coordination is required – our YSJB’s angels (the group of ladies cooking meals on a regular basis and giving to Homes), the buying of the things to cook, preparation and liasing with the Homes, sometimes as many as food for 450 people), taking cooked food prepared by individuals/restaurants and sending them to individuals/Homes, taking bread and buns from the many outlets and distributing them, etc are only some of the many tasks handled by us on a daily basis.
Now, we are getting a fair bit of people volunteering, some days are fully ‘booked’ and we have to reject volunteers. Volunteers (those in office and also those following me on my rounds) always tell me they enjoyed listening to the many stories of YSJB.
Sometimes being a volunteer has got its rewards too – one of our supporters ‘sponsored’ us to a sumptuous buffet dinner in a 5-star hotel recently, her condition ” only to active and hardworking volunteers only. I have a hard time selecting only “my 12 apostles”. Ha ha.
She didn’t even want to join us as she said she is not even a volunteer! Thank you Madam!
Want to experience being a YSJB volunteer? Just call me and I shall fit you in somewhere, especially when you are a first timer!