Food From The Heart rallies automotive community for food drive
It partners Wearnes Automotive to collect more than 33,000 food items in this year’s edition of Heart On Wheels
VARIOUS groups of Renault, Volvo, Lotus, Polestar and Jaguar cars, as well as Harley-Davidson and Ducati motorcycles, pulled up to 45 Leng Kee Road from Saturday (Mar 1) morning until Sunday evening, equipped with essential food items such as rice, canned meats and cooking oils that they had donated to charity organisation Food From The Heart (FFTH).
The car and bike groups, as well as the volunteers, were supporting the charity’s annual drive-thru Heart On Wheels.
The participating brands are under luxury retailer Wearnes Automotive, which partnered FFTH for this initiative.
Currently in its third edition, the initiative collected more than 33,000 food items – surpassing its target of 28,000 – and rallied more than 260 cars for the cause.
A total of 16 car and bike clubs, along with members of the public, donated nearly S$125,000 worth of food items.
FFTH hopes to reach 3,500 more lower-income households with these items and funds – on top of the more than 13,500 it already serves.
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At the event, volunteers checked the expiry date and evaluated the condition of each item before adding them to FFTH’s online database.
The items were then loaded into trucks to be delivered either to FFTH’s nearby community shop at Lengkok Bahru, or its warehouse.
The food collected will be used for monthly food packs and to stock the shelves of FFTH’s community shops – beneficiaries who live nearby can “shop” for essential food items there for free.
Robin C Lee, chief executive of FFTH, said: “At its core, Heart On Wheels is about mobilising the community, especially the automotive community, to take collective action.”
Lee added: “The primary aim is to continue to garner support for food donations, as well as funds, in order for us to continue feeding and supporting the ever-increasing number of beneficiaries in Singapore.”
So far, FFTH has opened five community shops around Singapore, with each one providing food to hundreds of households on a monthly basis. Its latest one launched on Feb 22 in Yishun, and the charity aims to open a few more this year.
Lee added that Heart On Wheels’ secondary aim is inculcating a spirit of giving back among the younger generation.
“A lot of the cars that pass through, you’ll notice that (the donors) brought their kids… It’s about building community spirit and families coming together, inculcating the right values to their children,” he noted.
Besides the drive-thru, Heart On Wheels is also supported by the Sponsor A Food Bundle digital campaign, which enables individual and corporate donors to contribute to the food drive even if they are unable to attend in person.
An ongoing partnership
Partnering Wearnes has enabled FFTH to tap the larger automotive community to support Heart On Wheels. The brands under Wearnes reached out to their own partners, customers and network for the cause, leading to greater outreach and higher participation.
Their partnership started in 2023, when FFTH volunteer Sabrina Sng discussed with Lee about hosting a food drive at Wearnes’ space at Leng Kee Road.
Sng, who is managing director of Polestar, Lotus and insurance at Wearnes, had been volunteering with FFTH’s Bread Run programme, which delivers bread to beneficiaries, since 2020.
“FFTH generally has difficulty with finding spaces where it’s easy for people to drop off (food) donations, because other spaces may be inconvenient or congested. For us, we have a big car park and a huge owner base of drivers,” she said.
She added that the partnership “made a lot of sense”.
Lee said the initiative has grown since its first edition, from “barely 200 cars” participating to aiming for more than 300 this year.
Sng added: “We see that each of the brands is more proactive in rallying (donors). For example, Harley-Davidson and Ducati – there are a lot of biker groups. They also spread the word among other biker groups… It has definitely spread beyond just our automotive base of customers, and I think that’s where the ripple effect helps.”
Ideally, Sng hopes that the whole automotive belt can be involved in Heart On Wheels. “There’s no business agenda. The main intention is to do good for charity by reaching out to our bases,” she said.
Since its inception, over 2023 and 2024, the Heart on Wheels initiative has garnered more than 54,500 food items and S$129,000 in donations.
Besides launching more community shops in other parts of Singapore, FFTH hopes to increase the support by S$5 to S$8 for each household by 2027 to provide more nutritious food items.
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