Jom Shopping

Last month, I just moved to Selangor. This Saturday 14 of April, I already had the privilege to participate in community work. It was part of the senior citizen programme by the Selangor government.

The venue was Econsave at Pearl Point, Jalan Klang Lama.

The special assistants to the Selangor State Legislative Assemblyman of Bukit Gasing N34 Constituency and volunteers from the Old Town Residents' Association committee were there as early as 9am to make sure that the registration tables were set up.

I wasn't familiar with the roads yet. So I didn't go there alone.

Actually I was following Ray. We had tried to rely on our newly bought GPS to arrive at the destination. My husband was more trustworthy than the gadget that wasn't 100% updated of the latest changes of the roads.

Wini who works closely with the Bukit Gasing community was the one who had called upon volunteers from MLC

to help in "Jom Shopping", a programme launched in July 2011.

 

Those who are 60 years old and above, fulfilled all the requirements and had pre-registered with the service centres would be entitled to a RM100 shopping voucher. The person in charge of that morning's event had printed out coupons to temporarily replace the vouchers to redeem at the checkout counters.

More than 150 senior citizens had been called to shop that morning. The first batch started to appear at the beginning of the first time slot at about 9.45am.

Wini, Jessica, Jeff, Ray and I were manning the registration counter. Other volunteers were helping either to chaperon seniors, to man checkout counter and help pack purchased items for seniors to avoid holding up the line, or to pack and hand out goodie bags to seniors as they exit checkout counter. Devi, one of the special assistants to the Selangor state assemblymen who was sitting next to me, had given us the instructions.

Each one of us was in charge of a list of names according to the alphabetical order.

We needed to verify their names and IC numbers in the given list, give them a coupon and a tagged sticker each, remind them that they could buy anything free at Econsave within RM100 only, tell them to redeem the voucher and a goodie bag at certain checkout counter inside the supermarket. Ray and I always ended our explanation with "Enjoy your shopping!" or "Happy shopping!". On seeing the uncles and aunties' smiling faces before they even began their shopping, we could feel their joy as if we were the ones who had received the vouchers.

It was smooth overall. Once awhile there were other senior shoppers who approached us to ask us what was going on. There were also some who had been urged by their friends to come to try their luck without pre-registration. Some had had received calls personally from either Devi or Rajan from the service centre but their names weren't in the list. In these cases, Rajan quickly checked their status and Devi would issue a coupon to them. Having numerous experiences with this Jom Shopping programme, Devi who was taking care of those whose names start with K or L was very well organised although she was the busiest among us. Passionate about her job and despite daily challenges, she has been working as YB Hannah Yeoh's assistant for four years.

The Subang Jaya assemblywoman YB Hannah Yeoh and the PJ Selatan MP YB Hee Loy Sian dropped by in front of the counter at different times. It was the first time I saw them in person. The last batch of the senior citizens came from 12pm onwards. We stayed at the counter until 1pm.

After the few hours' work, most of us were hungry. So our next activity was--Jom eating!