IPOH, July 11 (Sin Chew Daily) — Items picked up from a food bank in Kampung Tawas ended up being sold to a mamak stall nearby for cash.

The mamak stall nearby Yuan Qiao Ping informed her that some who collected the food items from the food bank organized by her sold the items to him.

Yuan was using her eatery as the venue to help the needy by offering them food and other necessity items.

She said she was relying on friends and relatives to post the news of the food bank on Facebook without an official launch.

She started to deliver food on July 2 for 50 people but the number of people who turned up was more than that, including those who came to collect freebies.

As her eatery is located near the wet market, the delivery was scheduled to begin at 11am to avoid morning crowd.

"People came as early as 9am and we had to defer to 1pm to distribute," she said.

Yuan started by allowing people to choose four items to avoid wastage.

"Then we realized that people spent a long time choosing the items which slowed down the distribution process.

"We decided to place the items in plastic bags and distribute the bags instead," she said.

Yuan also saw people exchange food items with others while some came back for a second time.

She ended up having to seek help from the police to maintain public order as the queue was stretching to five shops and some were queuing along a small lane after the five shops on Sunday.

A total of 300 packs of food were distributed on that day, she said.

Yuan changed her distribution method the following day by requiring people to sign up.

Her friends and relatives would pay the families a visit for verification.

Of the people who signed up to collect the food items, she discovered that some of the applicants were actually doing quite fine.

"They told me they were trying their luck," she said.

It was Yuan's first time running a food bank but she had a good insight of human behavior after doing so.

"I don't mind helping but we should help only those in need of help. They would be denied of resources if the help is channeled to others who are doing fine," she said.

On the other hand, many who learned about the food bank sent in food for her to distribute.

"There were times I really wanted to give up. But I changed my mind whenever people sent in food items for me to distribute," she said.

She was most delighted when an Indian family thanked her for helping the family regardless of ethnicity.