HONG KONG (AP) – Most people who head to Woosung Street in Hong Kong’s Old Town in Jordan visit its popular restaurants that serve everything from curry to seafood. Others may head to a lonely refrigerator, painted blue, with a sign that says, “Give what you can give, grab what you need to grab.”
The refrigerator door sitting in front of a hockey academy opens to show that it is filled with packets of instant noodles, cookies, food cans and even socks and towels for anyone who may need them.
Ahmen Khan, founder of a sports foundation on the same street, said he was inspired to create a community refrigerator after watching a film about others doing the same. He found the refrigerator at a nearby garbage collection point and painted it blue.
“It’s like a dignity that when you go home you open the fridge to get food,” Khan said. “So I want people to just feel that way. Even if it’s a street, it’s their community, it’s their home, so they can only open it and then put food in it and pick it up. ”
Khan’s blue fridge project went viral on social media and people have been going to let food inside.
Janet Yeung recently passed away with a plastic bag full of cookies, instant noodles and snacks. He carefully stacked them inside.
“I think doing good deeds doesn’t need to be on a large scale,” Yeung said. “A small act can already show our kindness and contribute to this world.”
A resident who would only identify as Yeung (with no relationship to Janet Yeung) is one of the people who benefits from the blue fridge, occasionally helping herself with food or even masks left by donors.
“Those who really need it can take things out of the fridge whenever they want without worries, as the fridge is here 24 hours a day,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Zen Soo contributed to this report.
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“One Good Thing” is a series that highlights distillations of joy in difficult times – stories of people finding a way to make a difference, no matter how small. Read the collection at https://apnews.com/hub/one-good-thing