Wee (front centre) is seen in a photo call with donors and representatives. Organising chairman Kuek Eng Mao is at front third left. — Photo by Roystein Emmor
KUCHING (Aug 1): More than 15,000 individuals have contributed over RM450,000 to the Sarawak Anti-Pandemic Support Fund initiated by the Federation of Chinese Associations for Kuching, Samarahan and Serian Division.
Federation president Datuk Richard Wee said the federation had received a very encouraging response from the community, irrespective of race and background, supporting the Sarawak government in the current fight against Covid-19.
“We even had foreigners chipping in for the funds. We started off (early last month) with a target of 5,000 donors and within two weeks, we received the support of 8,000 donors.
“Then we raised our target to 10,000 donors and now we have had over 15,000 donors,” he said when witnessing the handing over of RM26,156 in donations from 10 organisations to the federation today.
The foreign donors were China State Construction Engineering (M) Sdn Bhd, Shanghai Electric Power T&D (M) Sdn Bhd, and Bank of China (M) Bhd.
Wee said there will be more pledged donations coming from suburban areas, including Lundu and Sematan.
He said the federation will collect all donations and name lists by the end of this week.
“Once we collect them all, we will have to design and print a booklet comprising all donors. We hope to get this done by end of August,” he said.
Wee said all the donations and list of donors would be handed over to the Sarawak government later.
“We want to show that more people are responding to the fund, and that more people are supporting our state government,” he said.
Wee pointed out that the federation would not stop with the fundraiser, which officially ended on Friday (July 30), but will also continue reaching out to the community.
This includes the food aid programme as well as other awareness programmes to raise awareness of the importance of maintaining personal hygiene amid the pandemic.