Free Food Society
Concerned with the worsening economic situation caused primarily by the covid-19 pandemic, several friends gathered together in December 2020 with the objective of “doing something” to help the ever-increasing number of people in Malaysia who have lost their jobs and are in need of food. The group decided to register an organisation and by March 2021, Persatuan Makanan Ehsan -Free Food Society (FFS) was approved by the Registrar of Societies (ROS).
Our first meeting was on April Fool’s Day and since then we have not stopped our activities. By the end of August this year, over 13,000 families all over Malaysia have received food aid valued at almost RM700,000 from FFS. From the very beginning, FFS made a conscious decision and wrote it into our constitution that we would administer food aid to families, individuals and the hungry and needy, irrespective of race, religion and creed. Our only criterion is needy – and throughout our months of operation we have provided food aid to the local B40 communities who have lost their jobs, refugees from Rohingya, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somali and various others, the marginalised communities such as the LGBT, those released from prison and seeking out new beginnings, those with HIV-AIDs, the visually impaired, the disabled, school children who had lost family members and caregivers to Covid, and so on: the list goes on.
FFS is indeed fortunate to have amongst us people with the passion, the experience, the skills and the resources to put together a workable plan of action and to make that plan work. Two very special members of our team have been instrumental in getting us going in the right direction: Mr Rajasingham, the CEO of the Brickfields Asia College group of companies quickly mobilised his team of designers and within days was able to design all the various pieces of promotional materials required – our logo, our tagline, banners, buntings and t-shirts. He also made available a venue for us to use as warehouse and distribution centre which has been of tremendous help for us in collecting and distributing food aid. Mr Rick Chee, founder of Food Aid Foundation, has a wealth of experience in feeding those in need and he gave us valuable guidance and the know-how needed to run our operations and manage the logistics. With such valuable support from both individuals, FFS was able to put in place the necessary systems to manage our operations.
