36 Time December 21/December 28, 2020
As restaurants around the world
took huge hits during COVID-19
lockdowns, two food-stall owners
in Singapore remained busier
than ever. When the Southeast
Asian city-state went into a
“circuit breaker” lockdown in
April to stop the spread of the
corona virus, Jason Chua and
Hung Zhen Long, who co-own
Beng Who Cooks in the popular
Hong Lim Market & Food
Centre, took to delivering food—
free of charge—to anyone who
couldn’t afford it.
Chua says the idea was
prompted by a friend who told him
about seeing an elderly man beg-
ging for money in a coffee shop;the friend asked Chua if they could
do something to help. Just hours
later, Chua and Hung shared a
message on the Beng Who Cooks
Instagram page, telling Singapor-
eans to reach out if they needed a
free meal, with a promise to not
ask any questions. They were soon
inundated with requests.
Chua and Hung put up roughly
$6,000 of their personal funds for
the cause, while Chua’s friend—
the one who had raised the
initial concern about food access
during the pandemic—donated
$5,000 more. From April to June,
when lockdown measures eased,
Chua estimates that they gave
away around 2,500 meals—eachPastor Reshorna Fitzpatrick and her
husband, Bishop Derrick Fitzpatrick, are
used to public service, having spent the
past two decades leading Stone Temple
Missionary Baptist Church on Chicago’s
West Side. But their efforts intensified this
year as the couple transformed their church
into a hub of community outreach: a food
bank, a distributor of cleaning supplies, a
stage for self-expression and more.
In April, with members of their
congregation and neighborhood among the
millions of Americans out of work, the couple
began giving out roughly 300 food boxes
a week to those in need. Produce from the
church’s community garden also filled the
“love fridge,” an outdoor refrigerator near
the church stocked with free food. When
funds for their food-box initiative ran out,
they partnered with the Urban Growers
Collective, a local Black- and women-led
nonprofit farm, to source fresh produce. The
Fitzpatricks also launched a “Soup for the
Soul” program, where community members
can pick up hot soup made by local chefs
every Monday. “I really do believe that we
are our brother’s keeper,” Reshorna says.
The church has also provided the local
community with at least 20,000 masks, as
well as hand sanitizer and other supplies. This
summer, the Fitzpatricks hosted socially dis-
tanced outdoor services, and in the fall built
an outdoor stage where members of the com-
munity put on performances and share stories.
“People are more easily able to talk about the
need,” Derrick says of the pandemic’s impact
on long disenfranchised community members.
The Fitzpatricks know it’s been a difficult
year, but say they feel more connected than
ever. “I live to make sure that people are
blessed,” says Reshorna. —Abigail Abrams
THE PASTORS WHO
TRANSFORMED THEIR
CHURCH TO SUPPORT
THEIR COMMUNITY
The food-stall owners whowouldn’t let anyone go hungry