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NO ONE GOES HUNGRY: To prepare enough for the many who queue up for a free meal, the Singapore Buddhist Lodge relies on two automated cookers, worth $20,000 each, that can serve up 60kg of vegetables in 15 minutes. -- ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN
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EVEN as rising food prices drive more people to religious and welfare groups for free meals, not all organisations are feeling the anticipated crunch in food supplies.
The Singapore Buddhist Lodge, one of the largest free-food havens here, said that more donors were coming forward to help feed the needy.
Donations of both premium and house-brand rice have doubled in the last two weeks even as retail prices shot through the roof.
The goodwill has not stopped at rice. On Saturday, a donor showed up with 900 bottles of cooking oil in tow to keep the temple's 10 woks sizzling.
Such generosity has helped to feed the 1,500 people who walk into the temple on weekdays and the close to 6,000 who arrive on weekends. The figures represent an increase of close to 40 per cent from January, temple president Lee Bock Guan told The Straits Times.
In the past two weeks, the Kim Yam Road temple has also seen a 15 per cent increase in cash donations from devotees and local businessmen.
It was 'heartening', said Mr Lee, especially at a time when the temple was expecting a supply crunch.
'They even told us to call them any time if we needed more,' said Mr Lee, 63.
The 74-year-old temple's more than 30 volunteers serve up about 45 vegetarian dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.
About half of the queue for the food handout is made up of the homeless and unemployed and foreigners, the latter mainly construction workers and students. The rest are devotees as well as business executives working in the nearby Orchard area, said Mr Lee.
But he is not bothered by the seeming freeloaders.
'We don't care if you are rich or poor, so long as you are hungry and want to eat... we will welcome you,' he said.
That proved to be the case for Australian physiotherapist Julia Zianker, 25, who lives in a three-room apartment next door and popped by with her flatmate yesterday.
'We were curious about the crowds, wandered over and the devotees invited us to come and eat,' said Ms Zianker, as she tucked into some vegetarian bee-hoon.
The Singapore Buddhist Lodge is not the only charity that has seen donations increase, even as headline after headline captures the pinch felt on the ground.
At the Central Sikh Gurdwara in Jalan Bukit Merah,the cash donations which pay for meals have stayed steady.
It offers 500 free lunches each day, up from 300 at the start of the year,said temple volunteer Dilpag Singh.
Supplies have also not taken a knock at the Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society's meal centres in Toa Payoh, Telok Blangah and MacPherson, said chairman Mr Lee Kim Siang.
But whether or not donations are stable, charities that keep stomachs filled are bracing themselves for more of the needy.
Said Buddhist Lodge volunteer Huang Yue Jia, 75: 'Things are getting more expensive. There will still be many poor and needy people out there who depend on the free meals to get by.'
jermync@sph.com.sg
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