People fill in a form to collect free rice from donors in Huế City. Photo courtesy of Huế Newspaper

THỪA THIÊN-HUẾ — Donors in the central city of Huế have set up a 'rice ATM' in the city to help underprivileged people that have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Volunteers at colleges in the city set up the first site at the Phú Xuân private college at 28 Nguyễn Tri Phương Street on Saturday to give 2kg of free rice for each person.

They said donors have been supplying free rice to poor local residents at several sites in the city to avoid large crowds gathering.

Donors in Thừa Thiên-Huế Province also collected 4,000 face masks, 1,000 hand sanitiser bottles and 4 tonnes of rice to hand over to two provinces – Salavan and Sekong in Laos – to support the fight against COVID-19.

The Đà Nẵng City’s Young Businessmen Association also said it would set up two free rice ATMs to help poor people in Đà Nẵng from next week.

Chairman of the association Hà Đức Hùng said the first ATM would be installed at Trưng Nữ Vương Street in downtown Hải Châu District before being spread to more locations in Hòa Vang, Cẩm Lệ, Thanh Khê and Liên Chiểu districts.

The association has collected 40 tonnes of rice from donors in the city, and there are plans to gather more.

He said the free rice ATMs would operate till end of June.

Earlier, free rice ATMs were installed in HCM City and Hà Nội to help poor people during COVID-19 pandemic.

A charity in Da Nang has also presented 1,500 bottles of watermelon juice to doctors, nurses and medical workers at COVID-19 frontline hospitals in Đà Nẵng.

The group said it had bought 1.5 tonnes of watermelon from farmers in Quảng Ngãi Province to help clear overloaded stocks at farms. — VNS