Sister Cecilia joined us on this Saturday asking with Claire, Adri and Adri’s friend from Indonesia.

As every year, we asked every person applying for food assistance to bring copies of their house registration along with their ID card and the last electric bill.

As every year, we invited Thai people from Rong Moo and Suan Ooy communities to register foot Rice Run for 2023. These are the 2 communities Sister Joan served since 1991 when she moved to Bangkok. She started distributing basic food items to elderly from the beginning but the Rice Run as a program for registered seniors started in 2002.

Since then the criteria was simple: 60 years of age or older or a person with a Thai disability card. Over the years and was life became easier in the slum, Sister added other conditions that would eliminate people who didn’t go hungry – people who had family to rely on or had enough money that they could afford to buy their own food.

Since Sister Joan left Bangkok in October of 2016, we had to use their electric bills to bed able to tell who is likely to have enough money and doesn’t need assistance. The system is not fail proof but we that is someone can afford an air conditioner, they have enough money to buy food.

And if it is a border line situation, we decided to visit them at home to see if they qualify or the money we would spend on their food could be better used somewhere else. This year, as in the last several years, we reduced the number of people who receive help. 5wo years ago it was 72, last year we gave help to 65 people. This year we have recovered 57 seniors and disabled people for one year of assistance.

Reach will receive a good package every 2 weeks. Ever package is about 350 baht and it includes a 5kg bag of white rice, a bottle of cooking oil, a bottle of fish sauce and a bag of dried pork.