Love with onions! Pingtung County cooperatives purchase onions to care for community elders

The Pingtung County Government, with love and onions, brought cooperatives together for a public welfare initiative for the first time. On the 8th, a ceremony to donate onions and care for the community was held at the Sanxing Community Activity Center in Chaozhou Township. Because onion production had recently increased greatly, the Pingtung County Government, in order to help promote onion sales, invited cooperatives to donate onions to community care and support centers throughout the county, and prepared onion salad on site to share with everyone, achieving the goals of promoting onion sales, letting elders enjoy onions, and having cooperatives jointly carry out public welfare.

A total of 13 cooperatives took part in the onion purchase and community care activity this time: Yongxin Cooperative, Pingtung Farmers' Cooperative, Yixiang Cooperative, Nanfeng Cooperative, Nanli Fruit Cooperative, Hengchun Dahe Cooperative, Fuming Cooperative, Longtan Fruit and Vegetable Cooperative, Yagou Cooperative, Jinyuan Cooperative, Pingtung Prison Cooperative, Taiwu Coffee Cooperative, and the Medical Waste Treatment Equipment Cooperative. As soon as these cooperatives heard the meaning of this activity, they all immediately agreed to take part in the purchase, buying a total of 650 bags, 9 metric tons, of onions. These were then delivered through the Pingtung County Government to 295 community care and support centers across the county. Li Zongru, project manager of Taiwu Coffee Cooperative, said that the cooperative's members are all farmers and had once faced the difficulty of excess crop production that could not be sold in time, so they understand the importance of helping one another. He also said that the cooperative's first joint public welfare effort was very meaningful, and he hoped they could continue to take part in the future.

The Pingtung County Department of Social Affairs said that after Magistrate Pan Meng'an took office, he actively promoted community care and support centers so that elders could age in place in their communities. It also thanked the cooperatives that took part in this onion purchase activity for delivering healthy fruits and vegetables to community care and support centers throughout the county, allowing elders to enjoy high-quality onions, and hoped that in the future all social welfare sites could continue to use resources to help disadvantaged groups and give back to the community.