KUALA LUMPUR: It started with small acts of kindness, like providing food to medical frontliners to thank them for putting their lives on the line to save others in the fight against Covid 19.
Then, Kinderland Sunway SPK Damansara started collecting donations from parents and teachers on March 12, a day after the World Health Organisation declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic.
The number of Covid-19 cases was rapidly increasing and medical staff worked tirelessly to combat the outbreak in Malaysia.
“It was just a few days away from school holidays and we decided to raise funds to help our frontliners by providing them with meals,” said teacher Fatin Izzati Noriskandar.
In one day, the preschool collected RM2,000. With an additional RM500 donated by the school, the funds were used to buy dry food and snacks, such as instant tea, coffee, malt drinks, oats, biscuits, cup soups, canned drinks and granola bars, as suggested by Sungai Buloh Hospital as it received enough catered meals.
The preschool also sent light meals like noodles and kueh from a caterer in Bandar Sri Damansara to University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC).
“Our students also made thank you cards for the frontliners to cheer them up,” Fatin Izzati said.
She spoke about the preschool’s effort on Twitter and received overwhelming response from her friends and family, who suggested that she start a crowdfunding campaign as they would like to chip in too.
She asked on Twitter if she should start a charity drive to help frontliners and more than 1,000 people supported her.
Fatin Izzati began a crowdfunding campaign on March 18, which collected RM78,750 in 11 days.
“At first, I received donations only from families, friends and friends of friends, but after five days, a couple of parents from the school found out and got involved too,” she said, adding that the parents started calling their friends and family to contribute.
“When I started the second crowdfunding campaign, it was meant for food, but when I heard that healthcare workers were running low on protective equipment, masks and sanitiser, I decided to focus on getting them medical equipment instead.”
She has since purchased 1,350 Personal Protective Equipment, 3,000 face shields, 50 boxes of three-ply face masks, five cartons of sanitiser, four cartons of gloves, 500 plastic aprons, 500 round caps and 500 shoe covers for healthcare workers.
She had to order some items from abroad as many items were out of stock in Malaysia.
She expects a delivery to arrive next week and hopes to be able to send the items to the Petaling District Health Office, Labuan District Health Office, UMMC and Selayang Hospital by Friday.