Communities help delivery workers enjoy holiday

While Spring Festival symbolizes reunions and offers a break from the hustle and bustle in cities, delivery workers — who rush through streets and buildings every day — seem unwilling to take a rest.

Liu Lidong, a 26-year-old from Hebei province, has been working as a deliveryman in Beijing for eight years. When asked about his plans for the upcoming Spring Festival, Liu said he would not return home until after the first month of the Chinese calendar, which is typically the peak period for home visits and travel across the country.

"I want to earn more money," Liu explained. "During this period, with the daily allowance, I can make an extra 3,000 yuan ($409) a month."

Liu works in Beijing's Wangjing area, where six to seven stations of one delivery platform are located. Each station typically employs around 90 deliverymen. According to estimates, 30 to 40 deliverymen at each station are expected to continue working through this year's Spring Festival.

To help delivery workers like Liu feel the joy and warmth of the Chinese New Year, various forms of activities have been organized for those working through Spring Festival across the country by local communities.

Li Yaohan, a staff member from a community service center in Jiangtai township in Beijing, said her community organized a Spring Festival gala last year for delivery workers staying in Beijing and sent letters to their families.

"We are planning more festive activities to involve more people this year," she said. "As many of the delivery workers are not going home for the holiday, we want to make them feel at home here."

Meanwhile, in Shanghai's Minhang district, communities organized a festive event on Thursday at which delivery workers gathered to make dumplings. Each participant received a New Year gift package containing gloves and a scarf. The event also included a special celebration for deliverymen celebrating their birthday in January.

He Jingkuan, a 56-year-old deliveryman working in Beijing, said he didn't go back home to Henan province for Spring Festival in the past two years, but decided to return this year because his daughter is getting married.

"If we stay, we usually have a reunion dinner — organized and paid for by delivery platforms — at a restaurant on Chinese New Year's Eve," he said.

Liu also said that celebration activities such as making and sending dumplings to delivery workers who remain in Beijing will be organized on Chinese New Year's Eve or the following day, expressing gratitude for this heartwarming practice conducted by local communities.

"I feel truly happy participating in these events, as they fill me with warmth," he said.

In recent years, with more attention being paid to workers in flexible employment or those with new types of jobs including delivery, an increasing number of local communities across the country have improved their care and assistance to this group of people, not just for holidays, but also with a focus on offering voluntary services to meet their needs throughout the year.

Community-based service stations for people working in mobile or temporary conditions, often referred to as workers' homes, have also been emerging.

In the area where Li lives, for example, there are 21 service stations spread across an 11.45-square-kilometer area, catering to the daily needs of deliverymen and other workers.

Contact the writers at lishangyi@chinadaily.com.cn