Project Chanrity's Christmas 2013 - SAVH's Flag Day

Before Flag Day...

As promised that following the birthday celebration at Chen Su Lan Methodist Home, I would be looking for a service project for Christmas, there it was - a flag day by Singapore Association for the Visually Handicapped (SAVH).  As I have been educating Rachel on helping the poor and the visually handicapped, especially when we see them selling tissue papers in public places, and this flag day fell on a Saturday right before Christmas. I reckoned this was a perfect service project for Rachel and me.  

Just a few days before the flag day, we made a trip to the head office of SAVH located at 47 Toa Payoh Rise, which is just opposite Caldecott MRT Station.  I thought it was important to orientate Rachel so as to make this service project meaningful and educational for her.  At the same time, I went there to register my name and Gary's as volunteers for flag day and get detailed information regarding the actual day, i.e. where to pick up the tins, what time and so on.  

On the Actual Day...

Gary, Rachel and I woke up early in the morning to have a good breakfast as we expected this day to be quite long and exhausting.  As a result, we did not arrive at SAVH as early as we wanted. Nonetheless, the staff were happy to see us especially their youngest volunteer, my girl.  As she was way underaged to be registered as a flag day volunteer, her tin was signed off under Gary's name and either of us had to stay with her throughout the time when we were out there asking for donation.    

We arrived outside at the bus stop Novena church at about 9.30 am. As a regular at Saturday's Novena services, I knew that would be the best strategic location for any donation drive on Saturdays.  You see, people who attend Novena services tend to respond more positively to donation appeals, especially after having heard the usual inspiring homily.    

Rachel and I, each held a tin, stood outside the bus-stop, while her daddy went to the nearest station to fill his car with petrol and run some errands.  We were very blessed with a nice cloudy weather.  It was cool and slightly breezy.  This made our day more bearable, and was especially important to a five-year-old first-time fundraiser.  

Oh, did I mention that my silly girl brought a pair of bunny ears out in the morning?  She, with her weird fashion sense, insisted that she looked good with the ears.  Little did I expect that her pair of bunny ears helped drew quite a lot attention which brought quite substantial amount of donations to her tin.  Many were also drawn to her saying that she was cute, while others were moved seeing a kid raising fund for a charity.  

Within less than thirty minutes, her tin was a little heavy which was quite heavy for a little kid.  We took a break at 10 am as the hourly Novena session has started.  This means that most of the crowd, our target audience, had gone into the church and would not be out until the service was over.  Hence, we rested at the bus stop to conserve our energy for later when the service ended and the crowd started to move out of the church. During then, we swopped our tins because many members of the public had put in coins and notes into Rachel's tin but very few people put money into mine.  (boohoohoo˜)

As soon as the crowd was stepping out, we resumed standing outside the bus-stop with our respective tins.  Again, within a short while, Rachel's tin was filled.  Meanwhile, Gary was done with his errands and joined us.  As both tins were too heavy for the little girl, Gary and I decided to each hold a tin while Rachel took care of giving out the stickers.  

We received so good response that we had to call it a day before noon, as the tins were quite filled and heavy.  The staff at SAVH were impressed with the result and of course we knew most was brought in by Rachel.  

I must say this was quite a meaningful day, preparing our spirit for Christmas.  As we know, Christmas is about giving. Thus, I wanted to let Rachel prepare Christmas by giving her time to a charity.  This is my yet another service project with Rachel to cultivate her compassion for the less fortunate.  I also want to once again advocate to all parents on children's volunteering that will empower kids with responsibility, engage their compassions and offer them the chance to affect the lives of others.  It will also help parents bond with the kids when volunteering is done as a family.  

Before I end this blog entry, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  

Celebration for Rachel's birthday -- A celebration with a heart

I have not organised a birthday party for Rachel after she turned one.  First of all, I did not want to spend time and money on such celebrations reason being she will not remember a single thing even if she may have the best time at the party.  Secondly, for superstitious reasons, I have refrained from celebrating.  Ya, of course, I know I am a Catholic.  But as many of you know, Rachel who had been in the best pink of health from 0 years old to 2, had her health taken a turn in early 2011.  Soon after she turned 2 in end 2010, she was in and out of hospital in the whole of 2011.  I had no choice but to heed what the folklore’s disapproval of celebrating a kid’s birthday.  Since then, there had been no celebration for her birthday except for having a small cake placed in front of her to let her blow the candles, so as not to totally deprive her from a happy little moment of having a birthday song sung to her. 

This year, I decided to walk out of that fear and have something for her 5^th birthday.  I figured that I would end up having to spend some money.  So I decided to have the money well spent, which means that I wanted the celebration to be meaningful and unique, rather than just children gathering her and sing her a birthday song.  I don’t recall where I have read this from, but someone suggested doing charity on the day of birthday.  I thought it was a great idea.  In karmic context, her involvement charitable act might even bring her good health and all.  In my perspective, which is very much Catholic, it would be yet another golden opportunity to introduce charity to her. 

 

After contemplating, asking questions on internet forums and researching via google, I thought of celebrating Rachel’s birthday by bringing food and celebration to the underpriviledged.  

As Rachel might not be ready for other charities (such as home for the aged, facilities for the physically impaired etc), I thought I should start her on something “easy”—  something that she could relate to –  a facility for young children.  I quickly decided on Chen Su Lan Methodist Children’s Home because someone commented that this home is very receptive to volunteers. 

Very quickly, I emailed and called the Home:

>> Dear Sir

>> 

>> I would like to celebrate my child's birthday this year doing

>> something

> meaningful and charitable.  Her birthday is on 2 Nov.

>> 

>> I am thinking of either providing breakfast, lunch or tea break on

>> that

> day to the residential children at your home.

>> 

>> I wonder if your home is receptive to this.

>> 

A nice lady Nancy who was in charge of volunteers responded to me.  She has kindly offered a great suggestion:  

> Hi Jessica

> 

> Thank you for choosing our home. Can our kids birthday on the mth of nov

> join in the celebration. Eg cutting the cake together.

> 

> I am sure the kids will be very happy with lunch provided.

> 

> I will block 2nov for the birthday celebration.

Celebrating for all the November kids… Why didn’t I think of that?  So now, you know, I was not the genius who came up with the idea.  Hehe!

I have talked very little about my plan because it was my first and I did not know how successful it was going to be.  Most importantly, I was a little shy to talk much about it.   Nonetheless, nearer to the event, I happened to talk a little at Blossom World Society while waiting for my kid's lesson to end.  One of the parents, Vivienne, overheard my little conversation, had approached me and asked if she could join in the meaningful event because she too wanted her daughter to learn something about charity home.  I was so glad to have met a likeminded parent who expressed interests in my event.  I gladly agreed for her and her family to join although I still had no idea how the event would turn out.  At the same time, my ex-colleague from SAFRA Samsudin, a friend who is the forever generous in helping and an expert in event logistics, volunteered to lend his hand the helpless me in this event. 

Okay.  Fast forward to the event preparation.

To make the event more meaningful for the November children than just having food and a birthday cake, I approached Alantic Sports to sponsor the birthday presents for the November children.  The ever-generous businessman Mr Gary Gan and his wife Cecilia have kindly sponsored a pair of Converse shoes for every birthday kid. Cecilia was indeed thoughtful as she gave a cash donation to the Home on top of the sponsorship. God bless this wonderful couple! 

Food was ordered from a reliable caterer and then it was time to decide on whether to get a big birthday cake enough for the children, or cupcakes.  Considering the messiness of cutting a huge cake and distribute on plates to all participants, I decided on cupcakes.  

Nearing to the day, I made an effort to brief Rachel on what was going to happen.  After all, she is still a kid and I did not want her to go through the motion and not know what was going on.  I told her about the children and why they were there.  I also told her that it was her birthday, a happy day where she would share her happiness with the poor children.   She has not fully grasped the full meaning of the charity connotation of this event, but I believe this would make a good start and I seek to do better every year for all the years to come. 

On the very day, we woke up early to get ourselves ready.  I was quite jittery about this whole thing.  Like any event that I had done before, I would always, always worry about things like “What if the caterer doesn’t turn up?” “What if there is a mix-up by dunno which party?”

My family and I arrived way before the stipulated time at the Home as I was afraid that the caterers and the cupcakes might arrive early.   We were also there so as to take a look at the place.  The Operation Manager on duty Danny had kindly walked us around and told us about the Home and the residents that they are helping.   It was a great and loving place where children from dysfunctional families are protected, well taken care of and nurtured.   We saw the dormitories where the residents live, places where they have dinner in a home setting environment and the hall where the children get to study and have tuitions conducted.  

Soon Vivienne and her family arrived followed by Sam.  The caterers also arrived with the food and so did the cupcakes.  We took out the cupcakes to decorate them on the tray while the caterers set up the food stations.  I was glad that I had the opportunity to briefly explain to Vivien’s eldest child, Rachel’s classmate at Blossom World Society, on the charitable purpose of the event, for the same reason that I briefed Rachel prior to the day. 

During lunch, some of us mingled with the children, getting to know them better.  I finally got to know Chloe, the sweet looking one that I noticed while I came for a short meeting with Nancy three days before the event.  She seemed bright and not as withdrawn as she seemed when I first met her.  I was amazed to meet Chi Yin, a chatty girl of Chloe’s age who has the exact same birthday as me! 

It was a short event.  I did not have any entertainment like magic show or performance as this was my first and I did not budget for anything else other than food and cakes.  Of course, we had a birthday song sung followed by blowing of candles.  Sam kindly took out his camera to snap pictures of this precious moment but I had to stop him (Sorry, Sam!) because of the policy of “No photo-taking of the children” imposed strictly by the Ministry to protect the underprivileged minors who are placed in homes.  This was the reason why I could not provide any of the event photos in this blog but instead took snippets of the annual reports and a couple of pictures that I managed to capture of the place during the tour.     

The Converse shoes were then distributed to the birthday children.   The shoes were simply gorgeous and one of the children had them put on immediately.  This was immediately followed by the distribution of presents by Vivienne and her family who did not come empty-handed as they too had prepared some nice gifts. 

  

This birthday event, although simple and low-key, marked the inaugural service project by me and Rachel.  I shall call it Project Chanrity (Chan is the surname of Rachel and Gary), a movement in the name of our family to advocate charity, love and service to the community.  I hope to set up a tradition in my family that says “we give to charity.” It is a good lesson and models good behavior for the kid. 

Before I end my blog, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Mr and Mrs Gary Gan of Alantic Sports Pte Ltd for their benevolent generosity, Vivienne Ooi and her family for their kind presence and contribution of gifts, and Samsudin Bin Haji Saman for his big help.