A 'mushrooming' of good spirit

Volunteers gathered once again in Nakhon Pathom’s Huay Muang district for the flood relief activity dubbed the “Keep Walking Project”, designed by Johnnie Walker to help flood victims in the area. The project, which handed over a mushroom farm to flood victims to generate income and provide an alternative profession, is part of Johnnie Walker’s commitment to help victims both in the short and long terms following last year’s devastating floods and help them “to keep walking further”.

The event to officially hand over the mushroom farm to people in Huay Muang district saw Apinan Juntarungsri, vice governor of Nakhon Pathom, representing people in the district accepting the farm from Johnnie Walker executives and all the volunteers who turned out that day. Among the familiar faces were Patsarakorn “Pok” Chirathivat, Pattamon “Jan” Taechanarong, Alicia “Ann” Laisuthruklai and Puri Hirunya-pruek.

Isaress Sundravorakul, marketing manager of Diageo Moet Hennessy Thailand, said, “We at Johnnie Walker take it as our duty to come up with something that can help better the situation for all flood victims, not just a short-term aid but a long-term one too. From our research, we have found that the water has not entirely disappeared from many provinces including here in Huay Muang district. 

So it’s not possible for farmers to resume their regular work now. As a result, we decided to come up with this project inviting volunteers to help create an alternative profession for them. We want to help them survive and be able to stand up strong and keep walking further ahead in the future.”

The project built mushroom farms for farmers in 50 households inside 12 villages in the district. The firm expects to see a return of as Bt37,500 per household from the first phase of mushroom farm, providing great opportunity for farmers in the area to get back to normal.

“It is a great pleasure for me to be a part of the project. I have seen for myself how the floods continue to impact the lives of people around here. Although their homes are dry now, their farms are still flooded so they couldn’t plant anything. So, it’s quite hard for them to live their regular lives. Our help today, I think, would help them at least survive the situation and when the flood is all gone. I hope everything would get a lot better,” said Patsarakorn.