A volunteer gives out free breakfast sets. (Photo/Red Star News)

Over 10 shop owners in Ziyang City in southwest China’s Sichuan Province have offered more than 20,000 free breakfasts to strangers over the past two years, calling upon everyone to “remember to have a healthy breakfast no matter how busy you are”, Red Star News reported on April 28.

The breakfasts were offered to passersby in some of the streets of the city, including sanitation workers, police on duty, students on their way to school, and people on their way to work, according to Xu Jianmin, one of the initiators of this project.

Each breakfast was given out together with some heartwarming words on a sticker like “remember to have a healthy breakfast no matter how busy you are”, “do not forget breakfast”, and “only if you take good care of yourself can you take care of your family better”.

The endeavor was first started in November 2016, when Ling Gang, owner of a local restaurant, came up with the idea of providing free breakfast for sanitation workers after receiving a training about spreading positive energy and repaying the society.

Ling and some other local shop owners set up a group and began to offer free breakfast including bread and milk at his restaurant to sanitation workers once a month. With the effort drawing more attention, an increasing number of volunteers and shop owners have joined the team.

One of the stickers with a warm reminder of eating breakfast to be sent out with the breakfast sets. (Photo/Red Star News)

Now there are 213 volunteers and more than 10 shop owners in the group, including owners of restaurants, curtain shops, and clothes shops.

At first, the group sent out several hundred servings of breakfast each time, while today, they have raised the supply level to 1,000 every time. “We have sent out over 20,000 breakfasts accumulatively over the past more than two years,” said Xu.

“Many residents in our community have become volunteers, helping deliver the breakfasts. Some members of the community management committee have joined the effort together with their children,” said an executive of the community management committee of Hongfeng community of Zixi Street.

“Our life today is so fast that many people are often busy with work and neglect breakfast and the importance of a healthy life,” expressed Xu, explaining that by sending out free breakfast, they hope to call on every one to take breakfast seriously however busy they are.

Xu said the effort will be continued and that they hope more people will join them to spread the love.