February this year is particularly festive, with the Lunar New Year coinciding happily with Valentine’s. While everyone is happily preparing to enjoy the creature comforts of a good reunion meal, rowdy and full-filled family gatherings, and perhaps even perhaps an extravagant stay-cation with the loved ones, would you spare some time to think about those less fortunate than yourself?

If the answer is YES, and you are happy to put in a little effort to help someone have a slightly enjoyable new year, do read on for 3 VERY simple ways you can make a difference to another’s life. 🙂

 

#1 Donate Money Online (To a Charity Or Arts Organization of Your Choice)

Many Singaporeans are busy with work, family and friends, and rarely have additional time to spare to contribute time towards VWOs, but I know of many kind-hearted friends and colleagues who always express their desire to contribute back through donations but don’t really know how and where to start.

With the advancement of technology, giving back to society has become so much more convenient. Here’s introducing two online donation portals where you can easily donate any amount you want, 24/7 a day, to a variety of charitable causes as long as they are Singapore-registered organizations.

SG Gives

SG Gives has a easy to use (trust me if you can online shop, you can navigate this) platform allowing one to easily search for charitable causes and charities that serve them, and donate to these charities online. The portal aims to improve the quality and quantity of giving through a low-cost, high reach tool for charities to raise funds, and for donors to choose which causes and charities to donate to, without necessarily having to know each charity’s website address. Donate quickly and conveniently, at a time of your choice. Simplifying the donation process, it allows you to give to one or more charities, without needing to write multiple cheques, donation forms or mailing addresses on envelopes.

Give2arts

A similar online platform that allows donors to contribute towards the arts in Singapore, if so that one’s preference of charitable cause.

 

#2 Donate Food (Can you really finish all those CNY goodies by yourself?)

The Singapore Food Bank encourages companies or people to donate their unused or unwanted food (but still in edible condition of course!) which will then be collected and allocated to the needy through a network of member beneficiaries such as family service centres, various types of homes, soup kitchens, and other VWOs.

They have wide variety of programmes and events that are on-going, which you can find out more about from here. Or you could bring your excess food at home to the various Bank Boxes island-wide.

 

#3 Donate Some Time (To helping the needy)

If you have a few hours to spare in a day, you could consider helping out at Willing Hearts, a soup kitchen which serves about 4,500 daily meals, 7-days a week (or about 135,000 meals monthly) to the underprivileged, the needy, and other marginalized members of our Singapore society.

To volunteer, you can head down to one of their soup kitchens, help to prepare, pack and deliver meals to one of their many locations.

I’ve have gone down myself on several occasions. And I find it’s quite a fuss-free affair for people who can only contribute on an ad-hoc basis. Just head on to the volunteer sign up form and fill in a couple of details and you will be on your way to being a helpful volunteer!

 

Start #GivingBack Now

What do you think of the ways I’ve proposed above? These are some of the easier and fuss free manners to give back to the needy that I am aware of. Share with me in the comments if you have any other ways!

Of course for people looking to do more than ad-hoc activities, there are many other avenues to do so! I’ll do a write up on that some time in the future!

And not to forget wishing everyone a Happy Chinese New Year and Lovely Valentine’s! 🙂