4 Nov 2021 - 305 MEALS SERVED

Menu: Rice, scrambled egg and vegetables; chicken porridge

Meals served: 305

We had a full stack of volunteers today, thank you Young Christians in Phuket that dropped by to help pack meals. It was a crowded afternoon at the chapel. The food queue started building up at 4pm.

We often get asked How do you validate if these folks are needy? Our response:

- We serve hot meals that have a very low market value. These meals are also consumables and do not last beyond 24 hours. This is not a high value Survival bag which has a street value of THB 500 where there is economic incentive to get a free bag and resell it on the street.

- We have come to speak to those that queue for food. About 40% of the people that take food from us are the working poor. They may have jobs but these are based on commission or they have suffered a significant paycut (sometimes up to 50%) due to covid impact. Making ends meet is a challenge and us providing a hot meal helps alleviate their economic situation. We hope that certainly this group of people will "return to normal" once the economy recovers.

- Whenever there are free goods, one can expect that there is a proportion of free loaders. But we underwrite some amount of yield loss and just move on. To punish the 90% of people who genuinely need and benefit from our hot meals, vs the 10% of free-loaders is not rationale to cut the program. And it is definitely not economically feasible to vet every single person.

What would truly help fix it all, is a rising tide. We need jobs and we need proper living wages. For the SME businesses or corporations, feel free to post up jobs at our chapel. I am sure any person would prefer to make a living wage rather than queue 1 hour for a free box of food.

Email hotmealsphuket@icloud.com if you wish to donate items, offer jobs or donate money here to keep our program going.