Pay It Forward: Kelantan Flood Disaster

this is after 20mins of carrying boxes of water

While everyone was off for holidays and celebrating Christmas, me and mah bestie Ella was sweating buckets at the Bandar Utama Flood Collection Center. It was the first time I experience a disaster collection center as a volunteer to carry, sort and pack items needed by the people affected by the floods in Kelantan. I have been following the Kelantan flood updates on Facebook and tears just came rolling down when I watch videos of children crying for help and stories of friends and families being cut off from the world (no electricity, no telephone, etc). I saw my friend Aida Sue calling for help on her Facebook to volunteer so I called up and registered myself. Ella saw my Facebook status and called me up to said she's going to round up her son and his friends to come help as well. She picked me up and we reach the center before 9pm.

what happens after donated items are given?
(you need an army to carry, sort & pack!)

We didn't know what to do so the first thing we did was to carry heavy boxes of mineral water in the human train. Only after 20mins, Ella got shocked at my face. She said my hair and my face was drenched in sweat. I took a selfie just to look at myself. My hands and back was in pain already (dahlah long time never exercise haha). My knee was hurting due to the strain so I told Ella we should join the women volunteers next. It was a massive mountains of diapers and sanitary pads, everyone grouped up made friends and sorted them according to quantity and size. We then packed and seal them up in distributable sizes.

after midnight waiting for the lorries to come

memories of our first time together as volunteers

In 3 hours, everything was almost done. The men did most of the heavy lifting of boxes outdoor. We even had dinner here thanks to kind hearted people buying food and drinks for the volunteers. We were tired and my face turned white (pale) but we learnt many things that day and Ella said we could applied it to our community (The Butterfly Project) next time. Though we should have organize a Butterfly Volunteer group if we knew sooner but Nannie Isa who saw our FB updates at the collection center, came by to donate rice with her son. I pray that the situation up north and Kelantan, where areas are badly affected by the flood would improve soon. That's how I celebrate my Christmas #prayforkelantan. Read Ella's story on how she felt about this night here.