Lend a hand…

It was two Saturdays ago, the 11th of July, when my girl and the mum and her colleague/housemate and I dropped by here…

My girl used to teach here voluntarily, for free, of course, to help out with the people there who are doing their bit for the children with special needs…

Unfortunately, eventually, she was posted to a school in the Selangau district so far away and she only comes home on weekends so dropping by in the afternoon to help out is out of the question.

It is a very nice place…

…with offices, classrooms and even a nice play area that is a joint-contribution of the Japanese Chamber of Trade and Industry…

Well, we were there that day for the fund-raising food fair…

…in aid of the Sibu Autistic Association. Sometime ago, I bought a few booklets of the coupons that could be used to buy whatever we would fancy at this fair.

There were many stalls and many people though I would say I was kind of disappointed that there wasn’t anything that really stood out. Perhaps they should rope in the big hotels or those very popular cafes and restaurants in town to come in and sell some really nice things and all the proceeds would go to the charitable cause. Day in day out, they are making a whole lot of money from the many customers that walk through their doors – it would be good if they could give back a little bit for a good cause in that just-one-morning affair.

There was this stall serving free samples and selling the drinks…

…and stalls like this one…

– I think they were selling kim chi and there were others selling eggs, pineapples, salted vegetables and packets of bihun…

…and even potted plants…

This stall certainly enjoyed brisk business…

…but we did not get anything from there…

…and it was rather crowded and there was a long queue and we were told that we would have to wait for at least half an hour.

In the end, my missus used up all the coupons to buy one herbal roast chicken (which was really very nice) and some cakes and my girl bought some fish…

They also bought some acar (pickles) from this stall…

…not knowing that I had stopped there earlier and I had paid cash to buy that same thing…

…for my mum who seemed to enjoy eating that with her rice these days.

I would say that the fair was a huge success – the people selling the coupons must have done a really good job and I saw a lot of people going home with the cartons of eggs…or the packet drinks. Even those people selling the things were volunteers from some commercial firms, clubs and associations and others so kudos to all of them for chipping in and helping out. I told my girl that maybe if they have another one next year, I can volunteer too and set up a stall selling maybe…my pancakes…or popiah…or pies…or fried rice…or some special ethnic Melanau or Malay delights and she agreed that it was a great idea and it would be very nice if we could also go and in some small way, lend a hand…