Occasionally, you’ll hear about some of the interesting things our fellow Singapore families get up to outside their homes.
You have car owners fined for parking their cars outside their homes.
HDB dwellers who decided that landed property owners aren’t the only ones who can create a beautiful garden.
And even creative individuals who decided that the laundry poles could do a lot more than just hanging wet clothes to dry.
However, what you’re about to read isn’t just interesting but heartwarming. Read the rest of the article to feel that warm fuzzy feeling on a cold Monday morning.
Family of Doctors Set Up Vending Machine With Free Drinks Outside House
If you happened to be around Yarrow Gardens at Siglap recently, you’d come across an interesting sight.
A vending machine that gives out free drinks to deliverymen and drivers.
Set up by the Chiam family, father Eric Chiam, a doctor and businessman, took to his LinkedIn to talk about the experience.
Started as an Initiative to Show Appreciation for Food Delivery Riders
According to Dr Chiam, his entire family orders GrabFood frequently and wants to show appreciation for food delivery riders with a cold drink.
However, they couldn’t always make it in time to greet the rider at the gate.
Typically, this would be when most would go, oh well, and move on with life.
Apparently, the Chiams are not your typical family because they wanted to devise a way to do so.
The initial idea was to put a fridge with free drinks outside the gate. The idea was mooted, however, after facing difficulties sheltering the fridge from external weather elements.
That was when they chanced upon the idea of a vending machine.
And Thus, TYVM Drinks is Born
According to the project’s Instagram account, @tyvmdrinks, the vending machine makes a lot more sense.
It is designed to withstand weather elements and is able to keep the drinks cold.
The vending machine went live on 11 Jan 2023, and the results were encouraging.
During the first month of operations, a total of 637 drinks were dispensed, Chiam wrote in his LinkedIn post.
They even observed that no one took Houjicha while 100 Plus and Green Tea were the favourite flavours.
It was added that the vending machine saw daily visits from SingPost and Sembcorp employees. Not every Grab and Lalamove employee, however, grabbed a drink.
He reckoned that the news might not have spread yet.
A Great Family Activity
According to Dr Chiam, this activity doesn’t just do good to delivery men and refuse collectors, it was also good for his family.
They had fun bonding when topping up the machine twice a week.
The kids also had hands-on experience in making the project work.
One was in charge of opening up a Google Doc to pen in the idea and offer critical feedback, the second designed the logo and vending machine stickers while the daughter ran the marketing efforts.
His wife, Lisa Chen, also a doctor, is in charge of procuring the drinks and Dr Chiam is the man funding the entire project.
It costs about S$3,000 to set up the vending machine and each drink costs less than $0.50.
Talk about a win-win situation.
While the project is running smoothly, Dr Chiam says that there are room for improvement.
The family typically talks about the project and brainstorm ways to make it better over the dinner table.
One idea the family has is to devise a “pay-it-forward” system where others can chip in to show appreciation for these delivery men.
Another way of improvement is to figure out a way to establish whether the user is the intended target group, such as a delivery worker. This will prevent the system from being abused.
Have a great idea on how they can do so? You might consider contacting them on their Instagram account @tyvmdrinks as they are said to be responsive on that platform.