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Create Date：2013-03-19
Update Date：2013-03-27
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Department:Department of Food Science
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NCYU Students Gather Cabbage for Charity at 5 a.m.
 NCYU Students Gather Cabbage for Charity at 5 a.m.
Who said that college students nowadays are the overprotected, easily bruised “strawberry generation!”A group of over forty volunteering students from National Chiayi University help work the farm as early as five o'clock in the morning on Sunday. They helped gather and load heads of cabbage unto a truck by passing one after another in line. The harvested cabbage was transported to the former venue of the Taiwan Lantern Festival on Minguo Rd., Chiayi City. All charity proceeds were donated to the Association of Spinol Cord Injury Chia-yi City via the Chiayi City Government. By their charity deeds, the young students demonstrated a deep regard for the industry and the underprivileged groups. Furthermore, they exerted their creativity by playing “Village Song,” a song with the lyric “Away from home early in the morning, when the sun begins to shine,” on the farm in the early morning. By doing so, they tried to experience the life of farmers not only by working on the farm, but by sympathizing with their feelings through the song.
Besides the vigorous student team, NCYU President Chiou Yi-Yuan also had a hands-on experience in farming. When asked why coming to the cabbage farm so early, he answered humorously, “How can a president of a university sleep late while his students got out of bed as early as 5 o'clock in the morning?” He added that the university is dedicated to its social responsibility, and concerned with the livelihood of farmers. All the team members were spontaneous volunteers coming from different departments, rather than from student clubs. According to the recent news coverage, should no solution to the overproduction of cabbage be found, the farmers would use the over-produced vegetable as green manure. This would cause an all-loss situation in that there would be no bargain-priced vegetable for consumers to buy, and farmers would suffer great financial loss. While the biggest problem facing the farmers is labor shortage, they do not have sufficient funds to cover costs for extra workers to gather the cabbage. Thus, the students decided to gather the vegetable on the farm early in the morning on Sunday, load it unto the trucks, which would then carry the cabbage to the charity venue, where the Taiwan Lantern Festival on Minguo Rd., Chiayi City, had been organized. All charity proceeds were donated to underprivileged groups.
At the charity fair, funded by the NCYU Alumni Association and Chiayi City Government, all the consumers could buy cabbage at NT$10 per piece directly from the farmers. Deeply touched by the altruism of her juniors, Chiayi City Mayor Huang Ming-Hui, a remarkable alumna of NCYU, said this was meaningful event with so much warmth that she had marshal the human and material resources of the city government. The number of cabbage heads for charity sale had increased from 3000 to 5000, and the city government team, led by Huang, arrived at the venue to help with the sale. Huang complimented the students as “steadfast cabbage generation.”
The rising price of cabbage at the end of last year and had led to a rush by farmers to plant more cabbage, which already abounds in Taiwan due to the warm weather. This has resulted in imbalances between production and sales and price collapse of cabbage, which has been sold at the rock-bottom sale price at hypermarkets and supermarkets. Seeing that the farmers were selling their harvest after half a year's hard work at a loss, dozens of NCYU students teamed up and arrived at the farm to help gather cabbage on Mar. 17 at 5 a.m., with the hope of helping solve the problem of shortage of labors in the village. During the charity fair, there were also other fresh vegetables for consumers to choose from at a bargain price. To create a win-win-win situation, all charity proceeds were donated to underprivileged groups. In addition, posters with professional information on cabbage were displayed at the charity venue by the Department of Horticultural Science. The posters gave you a glimpse as to the origin of the name of cabbage, as well as the nutritional values of cruciferous plants. The event also featured a demonstration of the food conserving recipe of Hungarian pickled cabbage by students from the Department of Food Science. This is a well-loved way to conserve a great amount of cabbage by the method of fermentation.
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