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It was my first job as Vice President of Interact Club and I was early. I was wearing my well-used blazer and we were waiting for the rest of the Interact EXCO to meet at the Atrium. It did seem like a big job, though that was pretty much inversely proportional to the amount of information we had:

  1. The Marquee, Keppel Island.
  2. Make-A-Wish Foundation.
  3. 7.30 PM.
  4. Be there.
  5. In blazers.

The taxi driver didn’t even know where The Marquee was. We guessed it was a shopping mall, but he dropped us off at Keppel Bay Towers instead. Luckily, though, the receptionist there knew where Keppel Island was and we started off in that direction, hoping The Marquee would be easy to spot.

I remember it was a little surreal – in the middle of ululand, a group of about 10 boys trudging away from the last skyscraping sign of civilization that was Keppel Towers through cement footpaths bounded by lallang.

I did say it was a little surreal.

Anyway, we reached a bridge that overlooked a small marina filled with yachts.

Well, excuse me for not recognizing where the heck I was.

It was all very nice and pretty, but what sort of service were we going to have to do for Make-A-Wish Foundation kids on an island? With yachts no less. Luckily, there were strains of music coming from up ahead and we soon found The Marquee.

Guess what? The Marquee wasn’t a mall. It was literally a marquee.

Imagine this, but about ten times bigger. And looking like a castle.

So maybe we RI boys had been a little slow to realize that, but who expects to be doing CIP in a marquee on an island attached to the mainland with a footbridge? And a marquee shaped like a castle for heaven’s sake.

Well, the marquee (uncapitalized now, thanks) wasn’t the only attraction. There were lots of cars coming in, and they didn’t look too far off from the cars that were on display.

Well, not the buggy.

Turns out we were at Make-A-Wish Foundation’s Wish Ball, a sort of charity ball/dinner that was themed around castles. Because castles feature in a lot of wishes, apparently! Well, that was still fine. We took a few photos of the cars, then we found the person in charge – and he directed us to our table inside the marquee and told us to enjoy ourselves.

Which was all very fine, but -

“So, where are the children?”

His face look a little torn between laughter and confusion for a bit then -

“This ball isn’t for the children. You were sponsored to come here for today.”

Whether it was a miscommunication or misunderstanding, it turned out we wouldn’t be doing any service that day. It was a bit like a learning journey, except that our seats each cost about a thousand dollars, and we spent the rest of our time eating salmon, gold painted fish paste (it tastes like chicken) and tiny food in huge plates. We met the sort of people we only saw in the Life! section of the Straits Times (there’s a cocktail circuit section once in a while) and watched as limited-edition watches and cosmetic packages were auctioned off in excess of at least fifty thousand dollars.

Of course, all for charity.

It was an experience of a lifetime and I’m glad I had a chance to see something like that (I doubt I’ll ever be invited to such a posh ball again in my lifetime).

But what strikes me most from this experience two years ago was the earnest question: “So where are the children?”

We had come expecting to do some sort of service, maybe accompanying children for dinner (not advised for such a short time, by the way) or helping serve food. Instead we got to attend a ball with the Dim Sum Dollies as the opening number.

Not wrong in any way – the participants probably had a lot of fun, and Make-A-Wish probably got a lot in donations – but it was a strange feeling that perhaps it was in the midst of this glitz and glamour that people actually benefited more. That year (Secondary 2), I had done a batch CIP with Viriya in the most conventional manner possible – flag day. In about four hours in the open, swallowing shyness to approach complete strangers for donations at about a 20% success rate, I got about $20? Multiply that by about 400 in the batch and you get $8000 for charity. I think the starting bid for one of the watches at the Wish Ball was $20,000. It rose in increments of $10,000.

I wondered the same thing again this year, when my batch was doing Home Creation, essentially helping clean/renovate the homes of low-income Singaporeans. Needless to say it was much harder work than sitting down and eating dinner.

And if you asked for water, you got it in a pail.

As we worked from unit to unit, we came across an old man who had requested for a small table (the kind that’s small enough for you to put a lamp on top of) during needs analysis. We didn’t have the table – there hadn’t been funding and we hadn’t guaranteed it would be funded – but we felt sorry for him, he looked so disappointed. So we helped fold up his wheelchair and help him onto his chair as we cleaned up the rest of his house. He seemed happier after that, but I couldn’t keep wondering if he would be even happier if he had just gotten his table instead.

I know it all sounds pretty depressing, but don’t we always ask what would happen if every billionaire in the world did something for others? If they gave a tiny fraction of their wealth, they’d help a lot more people than you or I could with a tiny fraction of our wealth. What we can do is only so much.

But that would be pretty irresponsible, wouldn’t it.

There was another difference (other than amount of money involved) between Home Creation and the Wish Ball – I felt happier working in Home Creation. Maybe it was because I was able to see who I was helping, or maybe it was because I didn’t have to wear a blazer, but it was probably because I felt I was helping. The old man felt happier because I cleaned his room, even if he didn’t get his table. Make-A-Wish got lots of donations, but it didn’t matter if I was there eating caviar or not.

It’s a little selfish, maybe, but that’s the whole point of a Community Involvement Programme, isn’t it? If the government wanted to help the community as much as it could they could probably just do it themselves. They’d probably even get more efficient helpers by hiring them. But the point is moving from feeling like you’re helping to knowing you can help. And that only comes from a little inefficiency on our part at first. Yeah CIP’s become a paper chase in most places and sometimes even the most ridiculous things count as CIP, but it’s heart is in the right place. We only need to find it again.

Charity/Service comes in many forms, and most times people prefer it to be monetary – anecdotal stories tell of NGOs turning down offers for hands-on service in favor of money, so “volunteers” end up putting the bulk of their time and effort into finding ways to earn more money for charity, rather than actually going down and seeing the people they’re helping. But it’s the difference between what you want and what they need, sometimes.

How many street sales, flag days and charity concerts have we seen and done before? They all help, sure, but never mistake such second-hand service as what’s all you need to do. The needy may get the money, but we don’t grow as a person and that’s just robbing ourselves. We’ll buy charity concert tickets but not reach out and help out the bullied kid, or stand up and give up our seats for someone who needs it, 报章报道/cliched composition style, or just get down on our knees and help who needs to be helped right in front of us. We’re distancing ourselves from real service.

All very melodramatic – but it doesn’t take a huge hands-on activity like home creation or large sacrifice on our part to start realizing this; it’s a lot about a sense of fulfillment.

Maybe all it takes is a slight sense of discomfort – of not helping - to ask something like: “So, where are the children?”

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