Donate Your Educational Toys, Board Games for A Good Cause

Dear Friends,

If you have any educational toys (building blocks, lego), board games to give away, pls consider bringing them down to Punggol Meridan RC to donate to their newly launched Toy Library. If you live nearby, you can also drop by to loan the toys for your children.

I thought that this is a great initiative as it allows children from low-income families to be given the opportunity to use these toys to promote learning and also provides more team bonding sessions within the family. It is definitely a project that will benefit the community and your support is greatly appreciated smile emoticon

Address:
Blk 114 Edgefield Plains
6312 0508 (Edna)

Toys Library Operating Hours:
Mon - Fri (4pm ~ 9pm)
Sat (10am ~ 4pm)

Thanks Eunice for sharing this and thank you everyone for your act of kindness smile emoticon

Caring for Elderly Living Alone

Dear Friends,

If you can spend a few hours ONCE a month visiting elderly living alone and chit chatting with them, pls let myself or Steven know of your interest & goodwill. You can bring your friends or family members (including children) for this visit and the main duties include:

- visit and chat with the elderly ONCE a month on a weekend.
- Duration: 10am till 1pm.
- bring elderly for haircut once a month.
- bring them for a breakfast or lunch.
- remind them to visit doctor if they have a medical appointment.
- if you can, bring him/her out for a short walk etc

You will be placed in a team of volunteers where you and your friends (one subgroup) and other subgroups will take turn to visit the elderly weekly (thus each subgroup will only need to commit once a month).

As our population ages & the birth rate declining, there will be more elderly living alone with no companion or children. Your presence can mean so much to them and bring much joy to their lives, so thank you very much for your time and kindness.

Kudos to my hero, Steven, for coming out with this wonderful initiative !

Donation of Christmas Tree & Piano

I compiled a list of where to donate our preloved items but our kind friends continue to amaze me with the items that they wish to donate.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1437902803105381/permalink/1509810142581313/

I have a friend asking me where to donate a piano while another friend asking me where to donate a Christmas tree, these 2 items don't quite fit into the list that I compiled above. I asked around some of my volunteer friends who worked closely with the Elderly/ Children Homes and they are clueless too. I googled and was unable to find any organizations accepting them either. I decided to contact the Homes directly and was pleasantly surprised to receive this reply from Chen Su Lan Methodist Children's Home:

"Dear Jason,

As many of our children are learning piano, I believe the piano will be beneficial. On another hand, so is the Christmas tree. You may drop by from Monday to Friday 9am to 6pm (excluding public holiday) to drop off your donation.

Thanks.
Best Regards,
Jackson"

This taught me that if there is a will, there is always a way. Just keep trying until you find success. If Plan A doesn't work, try Plan B, C, D and so on. Just keep going and don't let the obstacles stop you from reaching your destination. Similarly, if you want to help people, there are 1001 ways to do it, if you don't have time to volunteer, no money to donate, you can still give kindness and be nice to the people around you smile emoticon

Now, you guys know where to donate your piano & Christmas tree ya?

Helping Mdm Angie

Dear Friends,

Want share with you another happy experience smile emoticon

My friend shared with me this touching story of a nanny who took care of an autistic boy named John, abandoned by his parents since he was a baby, for more than 12 years. The nanny, Mdm Angie, was from a low-income family and had to take on part time jobs to make ends meet. On days when Mdm Angie was left with only $2 to $3. she would buy a packet of rice for John and eat his leftovers.

You can read more about Mdm Angie's story here:
http://news.asiaone.com/…/Singapore/Story/A1Story20110308-2…

My kind friend would like to reach out to Mdm Angie and asked if there are any ways to contact her. I realized that the article was published in 2011 and that made finding her more difficult. The only clue I got from the article was that Mdm Angie won the Asian Women's Welfare Association (AWWA)Centre for Caregivers' 2011 Model Caregiver Award. So, I googled for AWWA's webpage and found an email address to AWWA Caregiver Service (formerly known as AWWA Centre for Caregivers). I thought no harm trying, at most they reply to tell me that they don't have Mdm Angie's contact since it was more than 4 years ago.

Today, I received their reply:

"Hi Jason,

I have informed Mdm Ng about your request. She is agreeable that you call her at 9792XXXX and she speaks Mandarin.

On behalf of Mdm Ng, we thank you for your kindness.

Ping Ping Ng
Admin Executive, Caregiver Service
AWWA
Blk 6, Boon Keng Road, #01-52
Singapore 330006"

Huat ahhhh.....so happy to receive this reply smile emoticon

If we try, we may fail, if we don't try, we will definitely fail ! So friends, if you have not found success, just keep trying !

PS: If any friends wish to reach out to Mdm Angie, pls let me know, I can PM you her contact or I can link you up with my friend, who is planning to visit her and pass Mdm Angie some donations she is consolidating among her friends.

Thank you everyone for your kindness !

Gratitude

When I think of why I am doing what I am doing, gratitude always comes to mind. The people who helped me when I needed them most, the acts of kindness they have done for me, will always remain in my memory for years to come.

When I started my National Service, being the homely boy I was, coupled with a drastic change of environment, I had quite depressive thoughts in the first week of training. My platoon instructor, who had the unfriendliest of look, actually took time to counsel me when I told him that I was not settling well. He made me realize that my problem was not as huge as I imagined and that I was not alone in dealing with them. I had the support of the people around me to cope with the transition.

When I couldn't sleep at night because it was either too many mosquitoes flying around or too hot with the mosquito net casted over my bed, I asked my buddy if I could swap bed with him as his bed was directly under the fan. I never expected him to agree but he did and I am truly grateful to him because insomnia is such a pain, especially when sleeping hours were so precious those days.

When I was struggling with studies in the first semester of my engineering course during my Uni days and feeling so stressed up, my friend became my knight in shiny amour to offer me free coaching on my weaker modules, at the expense of his own free time. I was able to catch up eventually and help other course mates who are weak in their studies.

So, why do we give kindness? We give kindness because we know what it is like to receive kindness. We give kindness because we have been touched by the kindness of others. We also hope that our loved ones (children, parents, friends) can also be on the receiving end of other's kindness and that they can receive help when they need most. This is possible if all of us can develop the kindness culture within our society. The people you help today will go on to help others and who knows, that person may be your loved one or it could also be you.

Thank you for believing in kindness & here's wishing everyone a happy & enjoyable weekend ahead smile emoticon

"Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you." ~ Princess Diana

Let Kindness Be Our Safety Net

Dear Friends of P2P (New & Old),

I want to say a big "THANK YOU" for joining our humble group and giving your wonderful support for the initiatives shared here. I started this group with the main aim of providing more opportunities for everyone to do good, by sharing all the meaningful initiatives started by volunteer groups and individuals keen to make a difference to those in need. I know most of us lead busy lifestyles and cannot commit to regular volunteering. However, doing good and giving kindness goes beyond volunteer work, it can be donation of preloved items to bless poor families, sponsorship of groceries for low-income families, charity fund raising, recycling efforts or simply spreading the word and raising awareness on meaningful/ charitable initiatives. Some acts of kindness are as effortless as a few clicks of the mouse, so we are definitely capable of giving kindness, no matter how busy we are. I hope that through the initiatives shared here, you can kickstart your kindness journey and continue the good work of spreading love & kindness to whoever needs it and make our world a more beautiful place to live in. My vision is for us to build a community of kind friends, always ready and willing to help those in need and move everyone forward together.

I am a strong advocate of saving for rainy days, in the event life takes a turn for the worst. We should as much as possible depend ourselves before we turn to others for help. However, there may be situations where it can be too overwhelming for one to handle, e.g. hefty medical bills for rare medical condition. Also, not all problems can be solved by money alone, e.g. appeal to find missing family members, appeal for donation of organs. These are situations where we need to leverage on the community to come together to help the family in need tide through the difficult circumstances. There is definitely strength in the numbers, a huge amount when shared by a large number of donors is actually an affordable amount, a message spread across different networks of friends is information disseminated to hundreds or thousands of people. What is stopping people from turning from disappointment to despair to destruction is a magical feeling called Hope and Hope is what the kindness community can provide.

We must develop this culture of giving kindness because when we are helping one another, hope prevails and all problems can be solved eventually. We never know the day when we could be on the receiving end of others' kindness but we can be reassured that as long as we keep giving, we shall not fear that day because kindness is our safety net, there will be people to help us out when the time comes. I do not fear the day where there is no more money (our ancestor live well before money was invented) but I fear the day where there is no more kindness. When people start to live for themselves, care for themselves and have their world revolve around themselves, that will signal the start of the end for humanity. Therefore, I urge more friends to come forward to build our kindness safety net, simply by doing good whenever you can; it will be for the welfare of everyone, including you, your family, your future generations. Thank you for those who have already done that, the seeds of goodness you sow today will benefit many who are reaping the fruits tomorrow, thank you very much for your love & kindness and keep up the good work!