Recce visit to Yayasan Sunbeams Home on 21st March 2010 @ 3pm

It was a cloudy Sunday afternoon. The ‘A Piece Of Hope’ (APOH) committee comprising of Jimmy, Wendy, Engu, Foo Weng, Samantha Lee and Ted, conducted a recce visit to this year’s benefiary home. The committee brought along some goodies for the children such as KFC and cup cakes (specially baked by Samantha Lee).

Located in Taman Mawar, Cheras, Sunbeams have been established since 1995 by Mr. Alvin Tan and his wife Lucy. What started as a noble act turned into today’s Sunbeams Home that shelters 80 children from various races whom are abandoned, abused or neglected. At the time of our visit, all of the children were out so we did not meet them in person. All the children are housed in 2 terrace houses, one of which is a corner house where main activities are done.

Mr. Alvin mentioned that the children comes from all walks of life except Muslim children where they must be placed in a Muslim home (provided by law). He continued to tell us that they are also looking for a bigger place to house the children. He was asked whether the neighbours welcome their presence in the community, he quickly said that the neighbours are very supportive of the home. Ted mentioned that it was not so at the Persatuan Kanak-Kanak Cacat Taman Megah, a home in which APOH helped 2 years back. They are indeed fortunate with such good neighbours.

As the conversation progress into the immediate needs of the home, Mr. Alvin said that they have plenty of food especially rice in which they sometimes sell to others. Help in the form of money is their main concern every time. Jimmy then said that APOH is the right vehicle to raise such funds as it has been doing so for the past 3 years.

The visit to Yayasan Sunbeams Home ended with an agreement that APOH will help to raise RM100,000 through its Mt. Kinabalu climb happening in July 2010.