
- Katie Ault will be selling Christmas cards for the Riding for the Disabled Association this year
For expatriate associations in Singapore, helping others is a year-round activity, offering their members opportunities to integrate into the society of their adopted country and strike up friendships.
“For most expats, volunteering for local charities is about doing something for Singapore, and working together with like-minded people to do something useful with their time, ” says Anita Jansen Turkenburg, 53, Treasurer of the Netherlands Charity Association (NCA), who has lived in Singapore since 2009.
The NCA holds charity drives throughout the year, from garage sales to fairs in support of local charities such as Boys’ Town and the Society for the Physically Disabled. Likewise, the Canadian Association of Singapore (CAS), which hosted a charity ball for Make-A-Wish Singapore (a non-profit organisation that seeks to fulfill the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions) last April, also carries out other activities throughout the year. These include a food drive at the annual Canadian Thanksgiving Dinner (this year’s was on 9 October) and the Terry Fox Run, which it organises each January to raise funds for cancer research in Singapore.

- Margaret Wong will continue with her practice of handing out red money packets to the elderly at the Salvation Army’s annual Christmas lunch
Collectively, Singapore’s expatriate community has made invaluable contributions to local organisations that cater to the less fortunate. James Lim, Volunteer Resources Manager for the Salvation Army, says that expat wives lend a big hand, especially during office hours on weekdays when there is a shortage of local volunteers.
However, the year-end holiday period — usually from the third week of December through to the first week of January — tends to interrupt the schedule of charity work among expatriates. Many of them return to their home countries or go on holiday during this time. With this in mind, some associations have found ways to work around this annual ‘break’. “We have learnt to schedule our charity events for early December and after the first week of January to ensure maximum attendance, participation and fundraising,” says CAS President Janey Schueller, 38. The same holds true for the NCA, which holds its annual Christmas Charity Fair as early as midNovember. Proceeds from this event go to local charities and students from underprivileged homes.
Staying To Spread The Cheer
Although many of their friends and colleagues tend to head home, some expatriates remain in Singapore at the end of the year, and spend their time volunteering through the festive season.
To those like 39-year-old Katie Ault, who volunteers three times a week as an Assistant Instructor for the Riding for the Disabled Association (RDA), it’s a labour of love. RDA offers free therapeutic horse riding for adults and children, and she’s hoping to carry out riding activities through the Christmas season this year if the organisation has enough volunteers on hand for programmes to continue as usual.
“If you have led an amazing life and have been given every privilege, it’s important to reach out to the less fortunate during Christmas,” says Katie, who originally hails from East Sussex, England.
For Singapore Permanent Resident Margaret Wong, 45, who is a Catholic, volunteering in December serves more as a reminder of how blessed she is.
“Anytime the opportunity presents itself for you to reach out to the less fortunate, grab it — Christmas or not,” says the Hong Kong-born American citizen who has been donating goodie bags and hongbaos (red money packets) to the elderly at the yearly Christmas lunch held by the Salvation Army’s Family Support Services for seven years now.

- Beside her annual kettling, Gail Stubber also helped to paint the homes of some elderly people during Chinese New Year last year
Gail Stubber, an elementary teacher at SJI International, agrees. She is the Community Services Coordinator at the Australian and New Zealand Association and regularly ‘kettles’ (a street campaign where volunteers ring a bell to inspire passersby to drop money into trademark red kettles) for the Salvation Army in December.
“I don’t see volunteering during the festive season as something that’s difficult to juggle [with my other commitments],” says the 54-year-old Australian, who has been living “on and off” in Singapore for 15 years with her engineer husband. “You just make it fit.”
The Spirit of The Season
As these women have found, volunteering during the year-end period can be a different experience as compared to other times of the year, and has even provided insights about the locals. For instance, Katie — who sold Christmas cards for the RDA along Orchard Road last year — realised that in Singapore, charity is not about getting a token in return for your donations: it’s just about giving. “There was a lovely lady who put money into the donation box and walked away. There were a handful of people like that. It is strange to me, coming from England, where we buy and send a lot of Christmas cards,” she says.
Gail experienced similar generosity while on a kettling drive last year. “It seemed people were much more generous than the year before. 2010 had been a tougher year economically, and maybe people realised that there would be more of those in need,” she recalls. “A number of people fished out fifty-dollar notes from their wallets.”
Margaret, who has lived in Singapore for 17 years and who kettles regularly as well, feels that helping others, especially the elderly, during the holiday season is about more than just giving money. “What [the less fortunate] really need is attention and affection,” says Margaret, who has roped in her 15-year-old son Alfred to join in her charity efforts.
For people like Margaret, Katie and Gail, end-year volunteering is a win-win activity. Besides the knowledge that others have benefited from their acts of kindness, the sense of fulfillment they gain from their good work adds to their own festive cheer as well. As Gail puts it: “By volunteering, you get so much back — it’s magic.”





As a child in Taipei, Chen Li Ling and her family would travel more than 100 kilometres to her grandparents’ home in Taichung where the extended family gathered to welcome the lunar new year.

























