"One call away": Shanghai volunteer convoy rushes to aid local residents

Aerial photo taken on April 21, 2022 shows staff members disinfecting living materials outside a business office of Bank of China in Shanghai, east China.

"A large batch of PPE just arrived. Might need some help to unload them."

At 10:30 p.m., a task popped up in the WeChat group of "Jingjuli," a volunteers' convoy based in Shanghai.

In less than fifteen minutes, volunteers assembled at the site.

At 2 a.m. the next morning, the medical supplies were unloaded, before they were stacked neatly inside a warehouse.

At 4 a.m., the convoy regrouped at the rallying spot to escort medical workers to residential communities to conduct nucleic acid testing.

Similar urgent tasks have become all too common for the volunteers, who hail from Yangjing street, Pudong New Area in Shanghai. Among them, there are veterans, civil servants, social workers, small business owners, bank clerks, and those who work at state-owned enterprises. The oldest of the volunteers is nearly 70 years old and the youngest was born in the 1990s.

To answer the call of the Party organization in their local community, Party members and local residents have enthusiastically formed a team of over 30 volunteers and 25 vehicles on short notice.

"We are not only drivers who pick up and transfer the people involved, we are also the 'delivery men' who are just one call away," said Qiang Rong, who assumed the temporary role of the Party branch secretary for the volunteers' convoy.

The paramount task every day, he told People's Daily, is to distribute daily necessities and epidemic-prevention supplies to residential areas, including milk powder, vegetables, medicines, protective clothing, etc.

As we were speaking, another truck laden with daily supplies pulled into the yard at the Party-Mass Service Center of Yangjing street. Soon afterward, the volunteers came together and became preoccupied with the tasks at hand—unloading, sorting, repacking items for delivery—finishing in just over 20 minutes. It seems they have already become something like a team of "skilled laborers," one person quipped.

Staff members carry supplies for residents in a community of Pudong New Area, east China's Shanghai, April 19, 2022.

According to rough estimates, they said that during the single day of April 19, they distributed around 215,000 COVID-19 rapid antigen test kits, 192,000 face masks, and handed over pre-ordered medicines to nearly 200 local residents.

"Medicines, above all, can't be delayed," one volunteer said. Whenever they arrive with the medicine at the receiving site, they will send a message to the prescribers to remind them to fetch the medicine in time and tell them the exact location where to get it.

"The more we deliver those supplies, the more local residents get familiar with our convoy," Rong Qiang said. "Every so often, they will bring delicacies to us."

"Yesterday, some brought us 30 bowls of noodles with mustard and shredded meat. Today, we received chive pies, bao, and eggs," he added. "Our hearts have been warmed."

This story originally appeared in the April 25, 2022, print edition of People's Daily, written by Zhang Cong and Shi Yiqi, and translated by Meng Bin.