Hotel spreads early Deepavali cheer at welfare home

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A TEAM of 20 from the Pan Pacific Kuala Lumpur International Airport paid an early Deepavali visit to Persatuan Kebajikan Agathiar Sanmarka Sanggam (PKASS) in Dengkil recently.

Arriving in the morning, the team got right down to making muruku, always a favourite during Deepavali. Some of the children from the centre received a wonderful surprise when they came back from school and saw the freshly fried muruku.

Much excitement was in the air, as they joined in the merriment of packing the muruku into containers to give away to the underprivileged families that the centre supports.

The team from the hotel also brought along goodie bags containing items like rice, mee hoon, milo, sugar, wheat flour and other essentials worth RM1000. Used clothes were also presented to the centre to be distributed to needy families.

The hotel’s director of sales & marketing Alex Chin said it was time well spent at the centre, getting to know the children and bringing Deepavali cheer to them.

PKASS provides a wide range of community services, from feeding the poor, famine relief to medical services. Currently the organisation provides food rations to over 200 families in the KLang Valley and Negri Sembilan on a monthly basis.

The families are given a full month’s supply of seven essential items — rice, sugar, wheat flour, dhall, bee hoon, cooking oil and milk powder.

PKASS president A. Ananthan said he hoped more establishments would come forward to provide them with sponsorship for essential items or financial assistance.

“We organise regular roadshows in shopping complexes all over the Klang Valley to source for individual or company sponsorships for us to run the centre,’’ said Ananthan.

In conjunction with the Deepa-vali celebrations this year, PKASS is organising the fifth Deepavali devotional musical night and hamper giving ceremony for the poor and needy at 6pm on Oct 31 at the Dewan SJK (C) Dengkil, Selangor.

During this event, all 200 families under the care of the centre and five other orphanages would be invited to join the event.