On Saturday 6 September 2014 Disabled People’s Association (DPA) and Muscular Dystrophy Association Singapore (MDAS) held a Joint Flag Day. Over 900 volunteers turned up and collected donations at 10 collection centres across Singapore. The Flag Day was a culmination of 3 months of hard work from both organisations and the outcome made all the effort well worth it. DPA and MDAS recruited volunteers from secondary schools, junior colleges, tertiary institutions, disability organisations and companies who joined other civic-minded members of the community to work together to raise money for both organisations. Volunteers were not only Flag sellers, but also helped prepare tins, pack boxes and on the day provided logistical support and counted money for us. Volunteers also partnered persons with disabilities to sell Flags together.
This year was the first time both organisations piloted a Student Service Learning programme. At some of the schools student volunteers were briefed in how to recruit and educate their fellow students about DPA and MDAS and were then tasked with signing up, briefing and supervising the volunteer group from that school. The aim of the project was to get students to take more of an active role in Flag Day preparations, rather than only being Flag Sellers, and in the process nurture management and organisations skills. MDAS and DPA hope to carry on with this initiative in future Flag Day projects.
Another first was the use of mobile collection centres. Two buses took two groups of persons with disabilities and without disabilities to various locations in Singapore. This allowed the Flag sellers with disabilities to get around Singapore faster and sell flags in more areas than they would have in the past. Again, this pilot initiative was a success and the plan is to expand the mobile collection centres for the next joint Flag Day.
MDAS and DPA volunteers, staff and board of members set up a Command Centre at St. Joseph’s Institution and DPA and MDAS would like to thank the school for sharing their premises with us.
MDAS and DPA are pleased to announce that the joint street collections for DPA and MDAS’ Joint Flag Day 2014 was around $90,000, which will go a long way to supporting both organisation’s programmes. Both organisations would like to thank all the people who volunteered their time to help make this day such a success.
A special thank you goes out to Flag Sellers who managed to collect the most donations on the day in:
- Wong Joon Yao Ernest ($796.35)
- Elizabeth Tan Swee Cheng ($746.7)
- Wong Joon Wei Nickolas ($722.75)
- Nathan Chua ($683.75)
- Amanulah s/o Shansuddeen ($676.9)
- Syahrunizham Bin Zainal ($666.45)
- Kaw Lian Geok ($664.8)
- Patrick Ang ($646.5)
- Chan Ah Chye Jason ($561.95)
- Poh Jing Wen Jolene ($480.55)
Although DPA and MDAS would like to extend their gratitude to all the students who raised money for both organisations on the day, we would like to highlight the following schools for raising the most money collectively:
- Bedok South Secondary School ($ 7,610.05)
- Riverside Secondary School ($5,465.30)
- Raffles Girl’s School ($4,183.50)
DPA would like to thank the following companies for their support and donation of manpower, money, or both, in the preparation for and during the Flag Day itself:
- Advance Carton Pte Ltd
- Citibank
- Comfort Delgro
- Deloitte
- Deutsche Bank
- Fairprice Foundation
- Keppel Care Foundation
- Keppel Shipyard and Marine Limited
- Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple
- Lee Foundation
- Russell Investments
- Silveray
Last but not least, DPA would like to thank MDAS for their collaborative effort and helping to the make this Flag Day such a success.
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