What: Rice Charity
When: 15 January 2011
Where: ComCare Network Senior Activity Centre (Ang Mo Kio)
Participant(s): Alberton, Bee, Bengyan, Berlin, Candice, Casslynn, Celest, Charmaine, Connie, Elaine, Eunice Ng, Eunice Zee, Felicia Ng, Jasmine, Jean, Jewel, Jiamin, Joanne, Joyce, Junqi, Kah Yin, Krystal, Lydia, Mandy, Miaoting, Michelle, Ming, Rachael, Ser Chee, Shirley, Victoria, Vyvyan, Xaby, Xinyi, Yan Ling, Yun Xian, Zi Lei
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Before…….
Busy at work
Our very effective human chain…
Tada! RBKD and the goodie bags for the families :)
Preparing to set off~
House-to-house visits
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Xinyi, Club President cum Organiser:
Alberton’s write-up below would give you a good overview of the whole “operation”, so I will not touch on that. I will instead, share the insights and the events that lead up to this.
It all started more than 1 year ago when we first had this idea. However back then, we didn’t know what we wanted or how we could
really help. Coincidentally I read an article about Philanthropy yesterday, and this is an extract:
Business Times, 8th April 2011: PHILANTHROPY must move from focusing on output – how much is given and how many received, to outcomes – the actual social change that results from that giving, speakers at a roundtable on strategic grant-making said yesterday.
I guess now I know why we hesitated, because we didn’t want to just donate money, we wanted to do something substantial. In the process, although we managed to exceed our target, we were faced with a dilemma: Should we put our beneficiaries before ourselves and seek sponsorship although we abhor the media attention and possible misunderstanding or should we not? By seeking sponsorship, we know the outcome of our efforts and limited resources would be exponentially multiplied. Eventually, we decided to give it a try.
Boy were we so surprised. Sponsors readily agreed and we had rice, oil, biscuits, bananas and eggs sponsored to us even though we could give them nothing in return. There is warmth in the society, and our hearts felt it too.
That morning, the uncles and aunties were a little puzzled, young adults in black were running around their blocks distributing food for nothing in return. But mark my words, this is not the end for these young adults, we will be back with more sustainable efforts, we definitely will =)
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Alberton, Participant:
We gathered at the new ComCare Senior Activity Centre in Ang Mo Kio at Block 420 early in the morning. Later, we were briefed on the things to do and were divided into 2 groups to do the packing. The 1st group were instructed to pack each bag with bananas, instant noodles and eggs. The 2nd group were told to flatten the rice packs and pack 2 of them with 1 bottle of oil into each bag. When we finished our tasks, we were divided into 2 groups again, with each group going to 1 block of flats each to distribute 2 bags to the elderly staying in each rented flat. We distributed the food in order, according to the flat units given by the group leader. The elderly welcome us when they knew our main objective of being there. The whole event ended at around 12pm. It was a meaningful day for all RBKD members because we celebrated our idol’s birthday by contributing our time and effort back to the needy in the society.
