The Rice Run project serves the elderly, typically over 60 years old, often living alone. This program started in late 1990s as a donation of rice to the needy and evolved in early 2000s into a more substantial help to registered recipients. Every 2 weeks, they receive a 5kg bag of rice, dried pork, a bottle of fish sauce and a bottle of cooking oil. Often, we will add more items donated by different individuals or organizations.
Events in the Rice Run take place every 2nd Friday at 4pm in Rang Moo community of Klong Toei slum. This is a Google Maps link to where we meet: https://maps.app.goo.gl/RCYSXM2dBkjPBF1g6
Below are the posts and pictures from our past events…
As Sister Joan used to do, we set up a date for Jan 16, 2020 to meet in Rang Moo and register the recipients for the 2020 Rice Run cycle. Sister Lucy and Sister Kathleen happened to be in Bangkok and Sister Cecilia was there too to help.
Shannon, Deb, Janna, Trini, Carmen, Yvonne, Best and Pum also came to make the registration a breeze. Milos and Sister Cecilia interviewed and in the end registered 88 people for the Rice Run.
Welcome to the last Rice Run of the 2019 cycle! I went shopping alone but the process is so easy – it feels like Sister’s car is loading itself!
The distribution was as easy as always with a great group of volunteers there. They gave out 94 sets of rice, sardines, fish sauce and cooking oil and confirmed with the recipients to come on Jan 16th and register for the 2020 cycle. Here are pics from shopping at Makro and Penang Market and from the distribution in Rang Moo…
This is our last Rice Run of a decade. So much has happened and so many people assisted in this program in the past 10 years. We have been serving the people of Rang Moo and Suan Ooy neighborhoods every two weeks with a large bag of rice, 5 cans of sardines, a fish sauce and SILK has been adding a bottle of cooling oil to each package. Sister has started this and the Presentation Sisters of Western Australia and the volunteers in Bangkok are continuing this project of mercy and compassion for the elderly. On Jan 16, 2020, we will register recipients for the next calendar year.
Friday was no exception and 98 seniors and handicapped people that are registered in Rice Run received the assitence. I loaded Sister’s truck and 8 volunteers led by Shannon came in the afternoon to distribute the help.
As usual, here are more photos…
A difficult shopping day for me – I was alone loading the truck at Makro plus there were issues there with affordable fish sauce being out of stock and another one when I came to the checkout to discover I mixed different types of oil and I had to go back and reload things… We are always so fast at shopping so I guess this was the one time that we needed to slow down and appreciate what we experience on all other days.
Fortunately, the Rice Run distribution went great. As always, we had a lot of helping hands including the boys from the School Run program that keep showing up to help. Sister would love seeing them in action…
Sister Cecilia joined our Rice Run and Milk Run shopping this time and brought her positive energy and always “can do” attitude along. We also had Simon come to Makro to help load the truck with 500kg of rice, 500 cans of sardines, the 100 bottles of Oil and Fish Sauce – all went so fast!
The Rice Run was amazing – we had 21 people show up to help distribute. This is, as far as I know, the absolute record and shows how much people respect and love the work Sister Joan created.
We gave out 97 packets of food and, as always, all was right as rain.
Sister Cecilia saved the day. She came to Bangkok for 24 hours, went to our car that couldn’t start and had it fixed and delivered to Sacret Heart Convent so we could get it this morning and make the shopping trip.
Erez and I did the shopping and our amazing group of volunteers delivered 99 sets of rice, sardines, fish sauce and cooking oil to the needy of Rang Moo and Suan Ooy. Thanks to Sister Cecilia, Sister Joan and the Presentation Sisters of Western Australia for more than 10 years of bi-weekly Rice Run.
We had a great Rice Run event on Friday. In addition to the standard 5kg of rice, 5 cans of sardines, bottle of fish sauce and a bottle of cooking oil donated by SILC, we also gave each registered senior a bottle of drinking water. The water came from Makro employees who know why we purchase so much rice every 2 weeks and wanted to get us the ongoing promotion…. Very kind and sweet, like so many Thai people.
We had 12 volunteers show up on Friday afternoon to give food to 94 seniors and their families. Some “oldies” didn’t show up this time, the weather has been hot with increased pollution so it is possible that some of them are really suffering.
