A S$10 note may not be worth much to Singaporeans these days.

But to many foreign workers here, it's precious money that can be sent back home to support their family.

So, imagine a foreign worker insisting on giving S$10 to a rescue group to buy dog food for strays.

Poignant story

A dog rescue group recently shared a touching story in a Facebook post on Jan. 15.

It is about a foreign worker in Singapore and his love for the dogs in a factory he works at.

Approached volunteer group

The foreign worker had approached the volunteer group recently while they were making their rounds feeding strays.

He proceeded to give them a S$10 note and insisted they keep it.

The foreign worker was from a factory the volunteer group had visited.

Even though the volunteers wanted to reject the money, as they felt bad taking it, the worker was crying and choking up, insisting they accept the money as it was the least he could do.

Worker wanted to do more for the dogs

The foreign worker explained he wanted the volunteer group to use the money to help feed the dogs on his behalf.

The reason was that he felt guilty for not being able to do more for the dogs at the factory, as he only could go there once a week.

The volunteers finally relented and accepted the donation -- with both sides choking back tears.

For every story of abuse and abandonment, there exists people who are willing to do everything for community dogs, even if it means forsaking money that could be put to other uses for themselves.

This is the post in full:

What does a ten-dollar note mean to you? An uber ride? 3 cups of bubble tea? 3 plates of chicken rice?

Well, to a foreign worker, it could mean a month’s school fees for his child back in his hometown and a day of toiling in the hot sun.

Would you give up such a precious piece of paper without receiving anything in return? Not many people would. We have met people who would not even give it up in return for a cute calendar filled with cute pictures and heartwarming stories of our doggies.

Yet, during one of our regular stray feeding sessions last Saturday, one of the foreign workers from a factory that we visit every week actually approached us to beg us to accept his ten-dollar note.

He hoped that we could use that sum of money to buy food for the doggies on his behalf.

We initially refused his kind gesture and asked him to keep his money as we felt really bad to take his hard-earned money. Usually, workers approach us for canned food, kibbles or medication for the doggies.

This was the first time that a worker had approached us to offer us money.

However, the worker was adamant that we take his money and was choking and tearing as he spoke to us.

We simply could not bring ourselves to reject him further. He told us that he felt guilty that he could not do more for the dogs at the factory as he could only go to the factory once a week.

He badly wanted us to accept his money and feed the doggies on his behalf. As he spoke, tears began welling up in his eyes.

We also started sniffing and tearing when we saw that, so we accepted his scrunched up ten-dollar note with much gratitude.

Each fold in the ten-dollar note seemed to represent each day of guilt that went by for the worker when he could not visit the doggies to feed them personally.

We were touched beyond words. Kindness writ large in the worker’s little gesture.

Thank you kind man (he did not wish to tell us his name) for loving the doggies and touching our hearts.

Thank you for reminding us of the existence of kindness in this sometimes harsh and cruel world.

Kind deeds and kind people like yourself keep our faith in the human race alive and spur us on in our work for the doggies.

May you and the doggies be blessed with more kindness and happiness. Mark Twain once wrote that “kindness is a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see”.

To that, let us add that it is a language that the non-verbal sentient beings feel and reciprocate.

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If you're interested in helping out the Hope Dog Rescue, you can order a cute 2018 calendar here for S$10, or you can check out their site here for more details on how you can help them in their day-to-day operations, such as feeding these beloved dogs.

Top image via Hope Dog Rescue's Facebook post