Nasi Lemak is one of Malaysia’s most beloved dishes: fragrant rice cooked in coconut milk and pandan leaf. It is so frequently eaten here that it is regarded as the national dish.

The Meltwater Kuala Lumpur team has been actively doing drives and pop-up sales for charity over the last few years, so our local Culture Committee thought, “Why don’t we combine a fundraiser with our most beloved dish and a day at the park?”

Enter The Nasi Lemak Project (TNLP), a social enterprise founded by a group of young individuals who set out to provide assistance to Kuala Lumpur’s urban poor, targeting low-income households in several housing projects.

We were impressed by this group of individuals and their mechanisms for eradicating urban poverty, which focus on three main areas: a feeding program, education, and rendering assistance. They even won a grant from the US Embassy in KL for their initiatives!

Our goal on Saturday, October 3rd, was to raise MYR 1500 by selling Nasi Lemak. All proceeds would go to TNLP’s efforts in assisting underprivileged KLites through programs such as EduRangers (weekly free tutorials for underprivileged children), StreetRangers (soup kitchen outings), and costs born at the base of operations, among other things.

We started off early on a mildly hazy morning. Teams were set up at two locations of the selected venue, a park called Taman Rekreasi Lembah Kiara. The fundraiser officially began at 7:30 am after a quick briefing from our Culture Committee event coordinators about a competition to collect the highest amount of funds. The losing team members were to clean up the area. Volunteers from TNLP joined us, as well!

A first round to check the progress of collections was done at 9:00 am – The competition was heating up, but neither team was resting on their laurels. They were both putting in a collective effort to persuade park-goers to enjoy a feel-good Nasi Lemak, which was of course packed in environmentally friendly take-out boxes while making it known that their purchase would be directly benefitting those from low-income households.

By 11:30 am, both teams had officially sold out of their Nasi Lemak boxes and re-convened for a debriefing and a final calculation of the money raised. Being as smart as they are, both teams cleaned up as they went, so no one had to stay behind to do the dirty work.

The best part of it all? We were able to raise MYR 4611 by the end of the event!