You Give, I Cook, They Eat, We Share!
You Give, I Cook, They Eat, We Share!
Gessy Li’s Story
Faculty of Social Sciences
MSW
The social work master student Gessy Li got new insights about social work when she met the founder of Catering Care-Sammie Ng. Before joining Catering Care, as described by Gessy, she used to work with individuals rather than a big community. Ever since she joined Catering Care team, she has got a clearer picture of her future path in the field of social work.
“I did not have much experience with community service. This time, I am helping both the catering industry and the underprivileged in Hong Kong. When compared to my past counseling experience, I gain a different sense of satisfaction from serving in Catering Care as my work can reach out to more beneficiaries,” said Gessy. In the time of COVID-19, not only do the underprivileged suffer from the economic turmoil, the catering industry has also been suffering a great loss due to social distancing and dine-in ban. In order to alleviate this situation, Catering Care has been trying to kill two birds with one stone by involving different restaurants and community centres in its food donation project.
“I gain a different sense of satisfaction from serving in Catering Care as my work can reach out to more beneficiaries.”
Before the food donation project was fully launched, Gessy and Sammie had to do a lot of relationship-building work to connect with the restaurants, community centres and HKU students. In terms of student connections, they organised several tea gatherings and a field trip to Tsz Shan Monastery for students at HKU. Their relationship-building effort was such a success that a lot of students were volunteered in their team.
Catering Care has been collaborating with 3 restaurants on campus and one other non-campus eatery. For the time being, the elderly in St Barnabas’s Society and Home are the core recipients of the donated food. As pointed out by Gessy, Catering Care has got increasing demand of food delivery service recently. Gessy and Sammie hoped to recruit more volunteers, so as to sustain this meaningful service.
Written by:
Tracy Wong
Year 1, Faculty of Arts
April 2021