Do-gooder charges needy RM1 for servicing air-conds
IPOH: After experiencing hardship while growing up, Issac Chin decided to do his part by charging as low as RM1 to service air-conditioners for the needy.
For replacement of spare parts and minor repairs, the 38-year-old owner of a shop selling airconditioners charges a maximum of RM10.
Chin has been helping senior citizens, the disabled and people with illnesses by charging them a nominal fee for his services because he went through a tough life himself.
“For the past 10 years, I have helped more than 100 people by offering my services including giving out essential items, food and cleaning houses of the hardcore poor.
“I charge a nominal fee so that they will cherish this small gesture. For me, it is a way to give back to society after doing fairly well in business,” he said when met at his shop at Taman Botani yesterday.
Chin said he had never met his father while his mother had to leave for Singapore to work when he was young, leaving him under the care of his grandparents.
“We stayed in a squatter area in Menglembu with no electricity or water supply, eating just rice with potatoes, or sometimes porridge, as my grandfather worked in a mill making just enough.
“During my younger days, I mixed with the wrong crowd, got into trouble with the authorities, dropped out of school at the age of 13, before my grandmother arranged for me to work as an apprentice at an air-cond repair shop,” he said.
Chin said many had questioned him on how come people who were needy had air-conditioners in their houses.
“Not all of them are rich. Some of the units are very old and require a lot of repairs.
“For some senior citizens, their children have left them, while others are down with severe illnesses like cancer and they need to keep themselves cool especially after their chemotherapy sessions.
“I also have second-hand air-cond sets that I repair and donate to the needy,” he said.
Chin added that he would sometimes come across people who required assistance and would do his part to help them.
“Recently, I assisted an elderly man who stayed in a dilapidated house in Malim Nawar. Together with a few others, we helped to clean his house and provided him with a new mattress, cupboard and food,” he said.
“There was another case of a man in Simpang Pulai with three young children who is unable to work due to elephantiasis, so I helped to provide milk and daily essentials for them.”