Giveback 2015 - Volunteer with Lions Befrienders

What Christmas means to me ? I am not a Christian nor do we celebrate Christmas in a religious way. To me, it's a season of giving and it's always a blessing to be able to give other than receiving.

For the first time, with thanks to Qian Wen for initiating and coordinated with Lions Befrienders for our very first charity drive, to spread some love to the elderly who stayed alone all by themselves, together with other 6 like-minded families, all for a common cause.



Group meet up point @ Redhill close

It's not easy to carry out the whole process as we stayed in different parts of Singapore and comes December, we were all travelling at a different dates. We chipped in our help in whatever ways we could like helping to pack the rations into packs for 60 households for a start, when we met up for a Christmas gathering.

Packing rations

As for Xav, it was his first time getting involved in ration distribution kind of charity drive as I wanted him to be expose to the less fortunate and to let him learn to empathize, be kind, be sensitive and yes, spread the love! Even the littlest among all , was equally enthusiastic about helping to hold the pack of rice upon seeing the rest of the older kids did it.

The number of adults were outnumbered by the number of children today ! Nevertheless, I'm so proud to say that we had completed the task without any complaints from the kids commenting that they were tired! Their enthusiasm ran throughout the entire distribution and the only squabbles and cries were heard because all of them were so helpful that they "fought" over to carry the bags of rice and rations and who to knock on the doors. I wish Xav can be as enthusiastic as today when comes to carrying his heavy schoolbag the next year !

I had observed that Xav was more sensitive towards the elderly he met today. Usually, he would just blurt and ask questions bluntly when he does not understand certain situations, more often than not neglecting the feelings of the party involved.

He asked me pretty lots of questions when he saw unfamiliar terms like wheelchair-bound, bed-reddened etc on the name list and one elderly we met who had to depend on a fake voice-box to speak. All his whys surfaced but today, he managed to hold back his questions and asked only after we left the unit.

He got to experience learning to speak in simple dialects as some elderly are Cantonese speaking. Hence, on the spot I got him to repeat after what I said to communicate with them.

These elderly are staying all alone by themselves and I felt the happiness when we visited them with the kids. Some were so happy when Vera greeted them "porpor" also known as Granny, gave them her tiny handshake and gave a hi-5, leaving a smile on their faces.

One of the uncles saw me with the two kids and commented with a big smile "Aren't you busy enough with 2 kids and you can still come to distribute the rations"? For me, as long as it's within my means, if I can do it, I will do it.






I thank all the families involved in the distribution and Juline from Lions Befrienders, who made sure the whole process was carried out smoothly and made it a successful one. Thumbs up again for the wonderful kids and their involvement. I hope this giveback can be an annual event as long as we can make it, bringing and sharing more love around to the less fortunate.

Photo credit :

If you wish to volunteer your service with Lions Befrienders, do contact them via their website : http://www.lionsbefrienders.org.sg/. Read about their vision and mission.

With this, I concluded the most meaningful event in December 2015, just 2 more sleeps to Christmas, am glad that this was accomplished. Time to get ready for another busy year in 2016  !

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