In tough times like these, every donation counts – cash or time
Alicia Wong, Today Online 26 Dec 08;
VOLUNTEERING is something I’ve always told myself I should do — but when push comes to shove, I get lazy.
Plenty of people, I bet, can identify with this. The difference being, I had a boss to force me to into action.
In tough times like these, with the news full of how charities were short of volunteers and donations, my mission was to find out what had become of the spirit of giving.
So I found myself, one weekday afternoon, standing in a red apron outside Wisma Atria and ringing a bell for all it was worth beside a Salvation Army kettle — one of three outreach projects I signed up for.
:In two hours, some 40 passers-by put in cash donations. The earnest sincerity of some givers put me to shame. They stood beside the kettle-stand and rummaged for their wallets; one struggled with the books she was carrying to take out a $2 note.
A young girl donated some coins with a grin saying “Wait, still got”, and searched in her little purse for more coins.
Others seemed awkward, like they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves. They dropped in coins and hurried away, barely even looking at us. Some parents gave the money to their children and walked ahead; the child would deposit the money and scurry to catch up.
They were not the only ones uncomfortable to be so blatantly caught out in an act of charity.I felt uneasy catching the eye of a passerby — did he think I was staring, compelling him to donate?
Fellow volunteer Matthew had no such silly reservations. He called out “Merry Christmas” to folks, most times ignored or rewarded with a strained smile. It’s okay, he told me, we’re spreading the Christmas cheer; why else do this?
I’m more of the view that the public could be more gracious. Instead of walking past like we volunteers don’t exist, a smile, if you happen to catch our eyes, would be nice.
The retiree who took the kettling shift before ours told us she volunteers every year. This year, she signed up for five shifts. In her two hours, she had “some $2, $5, but only two $10 notes”. Last year’s giving was more generous, she said, but considering the way things are, people still give now so “we can’t complain”.
The true spirit of giving
That was when people were expected to give something for nothing in return. What if they were instead offered a service for free, with a simple appeal to chip in a little something for charity if they could?
Make the setting a department store like Tangs, where customers had already blown money on the posh gifts we were offering to wrap.
:In the three hours I helped out one Tuesday morning, we had fewer than 10 customers at our gift-wrapping booth and maybe only half donated something. :Really, I thought, even a token 50 cents would have been a nice gesture to show some appreciation.
:Giving seemed slower this year, said Ruth, a staff of Focus on the Family which was organising the fund-raiser for the second year running.
But if the donations weren’t exactly forthcoming, I still enjoyed my time as a volunteer, mainly because the :organisation’s staff were sincere and welcoming, treating us as friends and not just helpers. They exuded the Christmas spirit.
After they patiently gave me a crash course in folding gift bags, the staff kindly commended my first stressful attempt to bag a salad bowl as a job “well done”, even though it really wasn’t.
As for my fellow volunteers, junior college students who were at the booth every alternate day for a school community service project, they didn’t behave like they were there because they had to.
They seemed to enthusiastically want to do their best. If that wasn’t a spirit of giving, I don’t know what is.
A humbling realisation
The picture wasn’t complete till I touched base with the most important people in this whole chain of giving.
That’s why, on a Saturday afternoon, I was on a minibus delivering food hampers to beneficiaries of the Boy:s’ Brigade (BB) Sharity Gift Box project. There were eight other volunteers and we were mostly first-timers doing our bit for charity.
:One veteran volunteer shared with us her experience of how some of the needy beneficiaries would refuse the hampers, maybe out of pride, while others sought you out for something more precious — conversation. For many of them, loneliness is a constant companion.
The folks in the 20 or so units we visited seemed affable enough. They asked us who we were, took the hampers, sign the forms and said goodbye. One old man gave us the thumbs-up sign.
I was feeling pretty good about all this “hard work” — until one volunteer remarked that the charity experience was probably more novel to us newbies than these seasoned beneficiaries used to regular infusions of aid.
I was struck by the humbling realisation that, in the big picture of year-long giving, I really wasn’t doing much.
In the final tally, every bit counts when it comes to giving — whether it is $10, or a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon. Or just maybe, :giving means you keep trying to meet the needs of those you come across, all the time.
