Samaritan, friends cook meals, donate to less fortunate on streets around HCM City

With the COVID-19 pandemic leaving many people in HCM City poor and hungry, a small group of friends in District 10 have cooked up a wonderful initiative: making food and distributing it to people they see on the street.

Nguyen Quoc Bao (left) and Percy Smith (right) pack meals they will donate on HCM City’s streets. Bao's friends have been doing this charity work for around three months. – VNA Photo

Nguyen Quoc Bao has been doing this for three months, making vegetarian meals and riding around the city to give them to lottery ticket sellers, poor homeless people and others he feels might be struggling to earn a living.

Himself a vegetarian, he typically cooks rice, tofu and vegetables, which also keep costs low. Every day he wakes up at 6am and does this charity work until 5pm before preparing for the next day’s meals until 9pm.

At first he did everything by himself, making and delivering around 50 portions of food daily. Then an expat friend called Percy Smith joined him.

Briton Smith teaches English to kindergarten kids, and has been in Vietnam for nearly two years. He used to rent motorbikes from Bao’s shop on Bui Vien Street that has been closed for more than a year now due to a lack of foreign tourists.

Besides himself helping with cooking and delivering the food, he has also got some of his expat friends to join. The group now makes hundreds of portions every day, with the number once reaching 1,200.

Some of Bao's expat friends help pack the meals. At first he worked alone before they started to join to help. – VNA Photo

Smith comes to help on Mondays and Fridays with his expat girlfriend.

He rides a motorbike along with Bao, each carrying a huge tray loaded with styrofoam boxes of food at the back, and they travel around the city to hand them to people on the street who look like they could do with a meal.

Smith solicited donations on a HCM City expat group on Facebook, and the results have been wonderful both in terms of the contributions they get and the attention.

“Some people have seen [us] on Facebook and they come and help,” he says even as he works dexterously packing box after box of food.

The group makes hundreds of meals every day. Many people make donations to the group, allowing it to feed more and more unfortunate people. – VNA Photo

Aisha Amelia, another English teacher from the UK, is one of the more recent members of the group and also a friend of Bao.

“[Bao] spends a lot of his own money, all his time every day to give, give and give to everybody,” she says.

“I feel very happy. Sometimes it’s a bit sad to see people so hungry during the pandemic. But I feel very lucky to be helping Bao and helping people in Vietnam.”

A lot of people, especially expats, wanted to join Bao’s group, but due to the pandemic they have had to limit the number of members. Nevertheless, a great deal of financial support is coming from generous individuals, allowing the group to feed more and more people.

“The expat members are very passionate with this charity work; they really put their hearts into it,” Bao says, his face evidently brimming with joy despite being obscured by his mask.

Spreading kindness

While the expat members are helping Bao out of generosity, Bao’s helpfulness and kindness towards them in the past are definitely big motivating factors for them.

Smith says Bao has helped Aisha and him with many things, doing whatever he possibly can, so this is a chance to help him in return.

“I won’t be able to do this as much [after the pandemic] because I would be teaching again. But I will always help Bao and the Vietnamese community.”

Percy Smith hands a person a box with food. He says Bao is a very generous man who has helped him many times in the past, and so he is happy to reciprocate. – VNA Photo

Aisha says: “We often enjoy doing charity, but we want to help Bao the most because Bao is so kind and generous. He has helped me many times in the past, so if we can help a little bit to give back, then it’s very good.”

HCM City is Vietnam’s largest COVID-19 hotspot overtaking Bac Giang Province, and has been under social distancing since May 31, leaving many locals with dwindling or no income.

But a silver lining is that the Vietnamese spirit of kindness and solidarity always shine through during adversity.

In fact, many other kind-hearted individuals have been making contributions to feed the less fortunate: a vegetarian restaurant in District 1 makes around 5,000 meals every day for struggling people, Food Bank Vietnam has set up a refrigerator in Binh Thanh District where people can leave food and essential goods they want to donate.

Bao has the last word: “Everyone is struggling during the pandemic. So we want to share the burden and provide food to help them get through the pandemic and feel some human-to-human love.”

Source: Vietnam News