Community Service

In order to raise funds, schools around New Zealand have all sorts of activities from selling chocolates to having a ball. Businesses give generously to these events and so do the public. Which is an amazing contrast to where we come from. Doing this in Malaysia would involve getting a police permit and not to mention raised eyebrows from the general public.

This morning Ashwini's kinddie (Kiwi for kindergarten) organised a fund raising barbie (Kiwi for BBQ) and parents were asked to help out. We took turns to do some work at manning the stall for an hour throughout the day. Yours truly was cooking sausages for this event!

For this fund raising project, the venue was at Bunnings Warehouse in Porirua. They provided the BBQ set with gas for free in addition to allowing the kinddie to use a prominent space at the entrance. The sausages were provided by local butchers and parents. Bread was supplied by a local bakery in the dozens. Even divine intervention was available! The Man upstairs made sure the sun was up and the sky had nothing but blue skies throughout the day.

We charged $1 for a BBQ sausage on a slice of bread. All proceeds went to the kinddie. I am not sure how much we raised eventually but during my one hour shift, we sold about 30 sausages.

Going away from the community a bit, the fund raising concept is a bit of Kiwi thing to raise money for whatever reason. I have seen kids playing a musical instrument of some sorts by the train station, street corner, markets, to raise money for one reason or another. Once a family of 4 kids played music at Cuba Mall in Wellington to raise money to buy new instruments for themselves. There was this one kid on Lambton Quay during the school holidays playing his violin to go for a holiday. He played exceptionally bad, but had a sign saying, "I may not play terribly well but at least my effort deserves a gold coin donation". And people gave generously. At the weekend market, we see kids playing one instrument or another with a hat filled with coins. Just as we were going back from this fund raising event, we saw another barbie stall just round the corner raising money for a school trip to Italy!

Anil is seriously looking at learning to play the cello. He has mastered “Hot cross buns” after 3 lessons. Even if he does not get paid to perform at the New Zealand symphony orchestra, I know he will be able to raise some money playing on the streets.

Despite the intentions of these "fund raisers" I applaud New Zealanders who give so generously. Can't see it happening anywhere else, really!