Friday, November 27, 2009

A 'cool gift' for new single dad





Hasrun Manaf became a single father recently when his wife who has been working in Johore Baru for the last 2 years, demanded her freedom in August, just days before Hari Raya. He got custody of his eldest son Md Harith Hamizan, 9 years and Md Harith Haikal, 7 years while his youngest son 5, is still being cared for by his wife's mother in Johore.

For Hasrun or Yun as he is more commonly known around Angsana Flats, this has been a particularly painful period, one that he was ill prepared for and still struggling to come to terms with. For one, he is realising just how difficult it is to be a single father and be the sole provider for his growing boys. Yun’s take home pay as a lorry driver is only RM1,000 a month and of this he has to pay RM380 for his flat, leaving the balance of RM680 to survive till the next payday.

Now, although his youngest son is with the grandmother, under the syariah law, he is still committed to sending RM100 a month for his son’s upkeep. Fortunately for Yun, Jumble Station has been a real blessing to him in two ways – giving him groceries (rice, oil, biscuits, Milo etc) each month and enabling him to earn extra income on weekends and holidays.

See he was already helping us out way before he became a single father – he’d been assisting us with the transporting and collecting of items from the homes of the various donors and had been paid RM100 – RM120 each time, so aiding him as a single father was a natural extension.

His willingness to assist – going to as many as 5-6 houses in a day, usually a Sunday or a public holiday - without demanding to be paid for every house he goes to has enabled Jumble Station to save lots while still offering a great service for those willing to let go bulky items without having to pay for the disposal of the items themselves.

More recently however, Yun faced a terrible setback. With only RM20 left and two weeks before his next pay day, Yun happilyy help us out and received RM100 from jumble station for his efforts, despite being sick with a bad cold. While returning from Puchong he was stopped by police and asked to show his IC. Feeling very unwell, he uncharacteristically handed over his entire wallet with the newly earned RM100 to the policeman. When he got home, he discovered to his horror that the RM100 was missing from his wallet! Yun was bitterly crushed – he had promised to bank in RM100 to his ex-wife so she could buy milk and other items for their youngest son but now the RM100 was missing!

When JS learnt of this we immediately banked in RM100 into his ex-wife’s account and donated another RM100 for him to survive till the next pay day or till his next item collection event. Yun, normally a very quiet and private chap was in tears. He later SMSed this message “ Terima Kasih Sis - God Bless You!”

More recently, Yun was further blessed when he received a brand new Samsung refrigerator to replace his old one that was malfunctioning – it was no longer cool, the door was off its hinges and it was guzzling lots of electricity to boot!

Yoga and Kevala practitioner Sharmini and her group of yoga students spontaneously got together to raise the funds needed to help poor single parents when they learnt about Jumble Station’s efforts to help single parents in need. They went out and purchased a fridge from Tesco and no one could be more pleased than this deservingly helpful single father.

For a single parent, willing to ‘fish’ for himself instead of just waiting for handouts, this is truly a ‘cool treat, a super cool incentive’ indeed to help out others and be blessed in return! If Yun could, he’d SMS this same message to all you kind yoga folks out at Sharmini’s class - “Terima Kasih - God Bless You .. All” As it is, his smile says it best!

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Seeking gift givers...


Frens, Jumble Station will be organising a number of activities in the month of December to celebrate Christmas and the coming new year/ school term of 2010. First off we're planning a Christmas party for 30 children of single parents on December 9 together with the YWCA and it would be great if some people out there with nice toys or stationery items could donate it to us to be giftwrapped for this party. The YWCA will take care of the makan but gifts and carol singing will be our responsibility ... singing carols is no problem but finding the nice gifts that's our challenge so anyone out there who's got nice toys to give away.. here's your chance to bring smiles to the little ones.
Also on Dec 1 we will be having a free medical camp for single parents and the poor folks at Lembah Subang from 9am-2pm and since its a Tuesday, we need to have some free gift items to attract folks to attend the medical clinic - anyone have door gifts as inducement to ensure we get the 300 people expected?


Come January 3 2010 we will be having a Back-to-School party for single parents and their kids where we plan to give them a new school bag, uniform, a pair of shoes, socks and stationery for the new school term - some 200 are expected and we've already got 100 girls primary uniform but we'll need boys' primary uniforms and a few baju kurung uniforms as well.

So if anyone knows of anyone who can help donate or get us the uniforms cheaply made, just give us a holler or SMS 016-2202958 Anne.