Want To Support Struggling Hawkers? Here Are 5 Ways To Help

The plight of Singapore’s hawkers has made headlines recently, as they struggle with a dearth of customers due to the no dine-in rule for Phase 2 (Heightened Alert).

While the outpouring of public support is #steadylah, the efforts to prop up our local hawker scene have been rather piecemeal, despite having well-meaning volunteers. One reason is because it’s simply too challenging — logistics-wise — to coordinate the various initiatives, which are started by folks from all walks of life.

A think piece by The Straits Times highlights the “problem” of “matching demand with supply”. It poses the question: “How to help customers in their homes or offices know what food is available in their vicinity so they can place their orders?”

Hawker Melvin Chew (pictured with his mum), 43, tells 8days.sg that the coordination is not easy . The founder of popular Facebook community Hawkers United, his 298,300-strong group was created last year during the Circuit Breaker to give hawkers an online platform to advertise their wares and reach more customers.

Melvin himself is a second-gen stallowner who runs Jin Ji Teochew Braised Duck & Kway Chap at Chinatown Complex. During his day off on Thursdays, he utilises his tech knowledge and hawker network to link group buy hosts with struggling, sometimes chronically under-the-radar stalls.

“I have an Excel spreadsheet with the hawkers’ details that I send to 30 to 40 group buy hosts,” he shares, adding that he also has his fellow hawker friends on the ground to “help me get the details of stalls that are doing badly”.

Group buy, now widespread here, involves strangers banding together to bulk purchase from a seller. Collective ordering is usually a win-win situation; the customers get what they want, sometimes at a lower price, and sellers have more business. A host acts as the middleman between buyers and sellers.

According to Melvin, these group buys are a boost for hawkers languishing in ulu locations, as most customers are eager to extend support, but may be apprehensive about travelling for makan during the Circuit Breaker period.

“There are a lot of people who don’t travel to places like industrial areas and old neighbourhoods to tapow food. Even if the hawkers post [on my Facebook group], they don’t get much help,” he points out.

He notes that “we don’t wish to see old stalls — run by uncles and aunties for 20 to 30 years — close down ’cos [the hawkers] feel disconnected from society and demoralised that no one is helping them. When there are no more hawkers, we’ll have to give back whatever UNESCO [accolade] we have.”

Even though he has his own stall to worry about, Melvin reckons that given the current situation, “we can’t have food politics, such as being enemies when we sell the same food. We need to survive and thrive together”.

But he also reveals that not all elderly hawkers are willing to move with the times, citing a fruit juice seller who found it troublesome to package his drinks for delivery. “I said, ‘Uncle, I help you. I help you leh!’ But he told me, ‘So troublesome, don’t do lah.’ And that’s their mindset, we can’t force them,” says Melvin. “I just give them this example: We’re sitting on a boat and it’s sinking. We cannot say that we want to wait for a life buoy, and we don’t want a plank.”

In a Facebook post, Makansutra founder KF Seetoh urges people to support hawkers who are “not online, not wired, not blogged about”. He states, “They just hope you will show up… and buy an extra portion for [your] friends and family. We gotta look for more [of] such hawkers in our midst, there are tons of ’em.”

After reading about struggling hawkers, including an 8days.sg article on illiterate elderly food sellers who suffer from poor business as they could not offer delivery, Redditor u/waffleboy92 created a Google Maps Layer called Help Our Hawkers! for netizens to locate hawker stalls.

How it works: The crowdsourced directory lists your nearest hawker stalls on a map of Singapore. Simply click on the little red pins adorned with a fork and spoon logo to find out more about the stalls.

Says the Redditor: “If you're on the way to get lunch or dinner, this Google Maps layer shows you the nearest hawker to you — drop by and give these hardworking hawkers who have been hit the hardest some support! I've built this list from 8 Days and sporadic FB posts, but these hawkers are best known by the community they feed. Hence, your help is sorely needed to populate this list!”

You can contribute by submitting hawker stalls for the directory via this Google form.

Access the Google Maps hawker directory here.

Another Redditor, u/nGS_Official, created a Telegram bot called @SaveTheHawkersBot to encourage more people to tapow food. Users of the bot can choose whether they want to /asktobuy or /helptobuy (for an optional fee).

How it works: According to the creator, here are the steps. “[Join] /helptobuy followed by typing in your postal code and food. This will save your username, postal code and food you are buying to the bot's database, letting other users know you are willing to help dabao in your block.

The bot will automatically delete your entry after 30 minutes or you can choose to be deleted immediately with /donebuying.

/asktobuy will show you all the usernames and food respective users are buying near your postal code. You can choose which username to DM, then negotiate your delivery fee and meeting place to collect your food/drinks.”

The purpose of the bot, according to the Redditor, is also to benefit the elderly hawkers who “do not need to hire any more manpower to manage delivery service”. By having volunteers to help nearby residents buy food, it also “minimises people going to the hawker [centres] to prevent overcrowding”. Think of it as asking your neighbour to help you tapow dinner, except it’s less paiseh because you can opt to pay for this favour.

To use the bot, search for @SaveTheHawkersBot on Telegram.

Even though Instagram account @wheretodapao was created just less than a month ago on May 22, it has quickly garnered over 33,000 followers for its visually engaging, crowdsourced posts. If you want to get to know your neighbourhood hawker uncles and aunties better, this account is for you. Accompanying the photos are earnest captions detailing the hawkers’ backgrounds and offerings. You can also browse stalls categorised by East/West/North/South/Central in the Instagram Highlights reel.

True foodies will know the joy of sharing a good makan lobang, which is why Facebook foodie communities like Can Eat! Hawker Food, which currently has 62,000 members, and Hawkers United: Dabao 2020 (298,300 members) are now thriving online.

Can’t decide which group to join? If you’re the kind to kaypoh what people at the next table are eating, go for Can Eat! Hawker Food — it has like-minded everyday folks who love sharing about their hawker meals and are avid supporters of hawker culture. But if you’re looking to support new or small businesses, click on Hawkers United; it’s where you can find more F&B owners personally promoting their food.

Join Can Eat! Hawker Food here and Hawkers United: Dabao 2020 here.

If you’re keen to try a hawker stall but are put off by the pricey delivery or minimum order fee, consider pooling your order with other people. Since the Circuit Breaker started, ad-hoc initiatives such as Group Buys SG have popped up to cater to the demand for bulk buying.

Speaking to 8days.sg, Group Buys SG’s founder Winson Lee, 33, shares that he organises group buys for estates islandwide with “a team of 10 to 15 volunteers” (he holds a day job as a “creative director in social commerce”).

The group does not charge hawkers any commission, or implement admin fees and marked-up prices for profit, as Winson describes his project as a “social enterprise”. He explains: “We see the importance of rallying behind our fellow Singaporeans during this difficult period. We hope to be able to do this on a long-term basis.”

He zeroes in on hawkers to help “through articles as well as referrals from members”. He recalls, “We stepped forward to do a mini group buy for 915 Prawn Mee and [Hong Lim kueh stall] Ah Meng the next day after 8 Days published the article on elderly hawkers.”

Other than contentious commission-taking, one issue that had occasionally plagued group buys involves complaints of hosts asking hawkers for free food samples before organising a buy. Winson maintains that when it comes to accepting samples, “we need to differentiate between the elderly hawkers who need help, and hawkers who leverage on our platforms to reach out to our followers on Instagram and Facebook”.

His group takes samples from hawkers who are looking to leverage, as “we see it as our duty to make sure that the items we share on our platforms are carefully curated”. For elderly hawkers who need help, the criteria is less stringent, as “people generally have no expectations of the food, and truly want to help from the heart”.

Hawker Melvin Chew echoes a similar sentiment, as he observes: “One good thing about this Circuit Breaker is that we see more young people helping older hawkers to promote their businesses.”

To participate in Group Buys SG, click here.

Photos: Melvin Chew, Yip Jieying, Help Our Hawkers!, @SaveTheHawkersBot, @wheretodapao, @groupbuyssg