Tan Geng Hui's Homepage

For a weekend of Saturday and Sunday, I was brought back to a time when we would be helping out in Flag Day through our Scout Group, Gan Eng Seng School Dragon Scout Group. The tradition in helping out at Flag Day is in our blood and it spanned over more than 20 years as my senior, former leader in charge quoted to me.

I confessed that for some years, helping out in Flag Day or going down to help out in some form of community service was lost in me. Over the years working and looking at how the economy prospered, there were still some fellow people who was not able to catch up with the fast paced growth and were left behind by the rat race or they were suffering from illness, disabilities or issues that caused them to be less well off too.

While growing, learning and expanding as an entrepreneur, a lesson learned was Pay It Forward, helping people without expecting and asking for anything in return, especially those in need. Therefore, when my senior, another former leader of my scout group told me about helping out at Flag Day, I arranged my time to help out on both Saturday and Sunday.

Different people participating had a different role to play and each and everyone is important. There were those volunteers from schools who were helping out to go out and raise funds during the Flag Day on the Saturday, there were those who were stationed at centres across the island to distribute and collect the tin cans at the end of the Flag Day, the drivers and collectors to pick up and deliver the tin cans to the society HQ, volunteers at the HQ to account and sort out the tin cans.

On the Sunday, the volunteers would come back to open up the tin cans and count the money, sort it out into the correct bags and amount before the security firm arrives and pick up the funds raised for delivery to bank for deposit. The staff at the society would have more paperwork to continue with the necessary procedures for filing and reporting.

The recent mistrust in charitable organisations did place a bit of mistrust and anger, people kind contributions to the needy were misused. With the laws getting stricter that I feel it is good, the people would trust the charitable organisations and donate generously to help those really needy people.

As I reflect back on 2 days of community service, I am very glad to be back doing something meaningful and helpful, with my fellow alumni mata of young and old of the Gan Eng Seng  Dragon Scout Group.