Our Bag of Love

We were asked by our church if we would like to take part in their Bag of Love Project by contributing a bag for needy children. I thought it was an awesome idea and a great way to teach my girl to be mindful of the less fortunate.

Filling up our Bag of Love

I tried to get her to understand that these presents were not for her. She looked disappointed but was willing to give it up. I'm not entirely sure she understood but I'm sure if we do it more often, eventually she would =)

Posing reluctantly with the bag

I had fun picking out the stuff to put into the bag. I thought it was more meaningful than just giving money. Hopefully the children will love it =)

Join us and show some love to the less fortunate in this season of giving!

Linking Up With:

 

Pledging My Support for Global Handwashing Day

Today is Global Handwashing Day!

Global Handwashing Day is celebrated annually in over 100 countries around the world where initiatives are carried out to raise awareness about the benefits of handwashing with soap.

Do you know that more than 2 million children die before their 5th birthday due to diseases such as diarrhea and pneumonia?

According to the World Health Organisation, diarrhea is the 2nd largest cause of death in children under 5 years old. More than 80% of these deaths occur in South Asia & Africa, the primary regions for Global Handwashing Day activities.

The sad thing is that such diseases could have been easily prevented through the simple act of handwashing with soap!

Washing our hands with Lifebuoy handwash, which kills 99.9% of germs in just 10 seconds!

4 variants of Lifebuoy products: Total Protect, Nature Pure (not in picture), Activfresh and Mild Care

So for this reason, Unilever, through its brand Lifebuoy, has been working with the Millennium Villages Initiative to educate children on the importance of good hygiene across 10 countries in Africa for the last 5 years.

This year, they have also taken on the ambitious challenge of ensuring that these young children reach the age of 5!

How You Can Help

You can join Lifebuoy in their quest to save the lives of millions of children by Pledging Your Support!

With every pledge received, Unilever will commit to teach a child on proper hygiene through a partner with the Unilever Foundation.

You can help save the lives of millions of children around the world just by pledging your support on Lifebuoy's Facebook page!

I did. What about you? =)

Disclosure: This is a sponsored community awareness advertorial on behalf of Lifebuoy Singapore. All opinions are my own.

In Support of Children's Hunger Fund

In this season of giving, why not consider giving to hungry children around the world?

Children's Hunger Fund is a Christian non-profit organization that works to alleviate the suffering of children in impoverished regions across America and around the world. Since CHF began in 1991, the donations that they had collected have helped distribute more than US$927 million in food and other resources to serve the needs of more than 10 million children in 35 American states and 72 countries worldwide.

Here's what you can do to help:

1) Support Fund-Raising Efforts
Two mom bloggers, Pauline and Rachel (who also initiated this awareness campaign), have joined forces together with another friend to set up a stall selling exquisite hand-made crafts to raise funds for CHF.

Date: 3 December (Saturday)
Time: 2 - 9pm
Venue: *SCAPE

All proceeds from the sale will go to CHF (look out for the CHF fund-raising signage). If you're in the area doing your Christmas shopping, why not swing by and show them your support? =)

2) Conduct Your Own Fund-Raising
If you've been inspired by the efforts of these mothers, you may also want to conduct your own bake or crafts sale to help raise funds as well. Please let me know if you do and I'll do my best to help promote your efforts! =)

3) Create Awareness
You can also help by promoting CHF on your blog, facebook, twitter or other social media platforms and encouraging your friends/followers to donate to this cause.

4) Donate!
The simplest and most effective way would be to donate directly to CHF here. You can even talk to your child/children to give a little of their savings to help others and in that way teach them to be a blessing to others.

Please do whatever you can do to help!

"Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”

-- Luke 6:38*

*Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

CCF Hair For Hope

Recently, I received a shout-out on facebook from the hubby's university friend Dr. R (who also just got his PhD, congrats man!) that he's going to take part in Hair For Hope (2011) conducted by the Children's Cancer Foundation (CCF).

Hair for Hope is a CCF initiative which encourages members of the public to step forward to shave their heads for five very good reasons:
1) Create awareness of childhood cancer in Singapore
2) Raise funds to help children with cancer and their families
3) Show them that they are not alone in their fight against cancer
4) Build a community of support for them
5) Tell children with cancer that it is OK to be bald

I have always wanted to take part in this campaign, but always chickened out at the thought of having no hair. So I'm actually very impressed that Dr. R is shaving his head again (yup, he did it last year).

Dr. R in Hair For Hope 2010

As with the year before, Dr. R is once again raising donations to create awareness so head on over if you'd like to donate in support of him. I was going to give a small donation as well but for some strange reason I filled up my particulars and credit details like a gazillion times but the transaction did not go through. Seriously, why does the internet make it so easy for me to buy a dress but so difficult to donate? *Sigh*

So I have no choice but to just give a shout out from my blog and hope that some of you will be lucky enough to have your transactions approved.

If you've been blessed by my Understanding Pediatric Cancer series and feel that you would like to support as well, you can do the following:
1) Become a Shavee
2) Donate to CCF
3) Become a volunteer

More information can be found on CCF's website.

As the Chinese saying goes, "He who has money, give money. He who has strength, give strength" (literal translation), which means to do what you can within your capacity.

Let's do our part to support children with cancer and their families :)


P.S: Oh and one more thing, this blog finally has a facebook page! Please head on over and 'like' it to receive the latest updates. Thanks a million!

Pledging My Support For The Breast Cancer Foundation

Taking my cue from Mother, Inc, I've decided to pledge my support for the "It's Great to be a Woman" pledge campaign organised by Great Eastern in partnership with the Breast Cancer Foundation.

You can vote for my pledge and/or write your own pledge and stand to win attractive prizes like an iPad. More importantly, Great Eastern will donate a dollar for every pledge made to the Breast Cancer Foundation. You don't have to spend a lot of time on it, whatever is from your heart will do.

They are still in need of A LOT of pledges. Plus voting and pledging ends on March 8 so hurry, pledge your support now!

There's a Lovin' in the Air

Outside City Square Mall

Something about celebrating Christmas this year with a baby in tow puts me in the mood to give back to society, more specifically to other children. Partly because I love kids and partly because I want to set a good example for my kid.

So this Christmas I volunteered for the first time to paint a wall mural at the CSLMCH and also sponsored a present for one kid at the Melrose Home: Children's Aid Society. The latter was organised by Daphne at Mother, Inc who wanted to make a difference in the lives of the 50 children who live there by giving them vouchers each to buy themselves a nice christmas present.

Let's all play our part to help out the less fortunate and make this christmas a memorable one for everyone.

Merry Christmas!

Charity Patience Devotion

Like I mentioned previously, the sister and I were volunteering ourselves to paint a mural on the wall for the Parent's Corner at the Chen Su Lan Methodist Children's Home.

Blank wall at Parent's Corner

Our job was to incorporate the kid's drawing into one picture and then paint that picture on the wall. The organiser LP said we have to allow the children to help paint so that they will feel included. Sounds like a massive project to me. We felt we really needed some backup so we roped in my sister's bf to help out.

First we started out by drawing a sketch on the wall.

If you look closely, you'll see the sketch on the wall...

Then we mixed the different paints donated by a sponsor and got on with the actual painting. This was the toughest part of the job because of the children's involvement. We had to make sure they will not get themselves dirty or paint haphazardly. Most of them took on the painting without complaint and were very cooperative but others were less enthusiastic. There were 2 boys in particular who started to get unhappy when people started to paint over the small minute details that they had drawn. I tried to reason with them but they didn't understand that drawing/painting on a piece of paper is very different from painting on the wall. Small details don't go on a wall till after we have finished painting the background. But they wouldn't listen to me and one even showed us the attitude and insisted he will not participate anymore since it's not his design. Like whatever. I have a baby dude. I have become very good at tuning out tantrums. The sister, not so much. She was super frustrated.

So anyway, when they couldn't listen to reason, we (or actually more like me) were very strict with them. I told them they couldn't help out if they refused to listen to us. And they didn't help out anymore after that. Which was actually a real blessing for us 'cos we could finish it quicker.

Thankfully, there were also many helpful teenagers who were really good and helped us paint the bulk of the background. Sort of balanced the bad experience with a good one.

Putting on the finishing touches...

I did the words on the wall freehand - nope, no stencil =)

My favourite part of the wall was this waterfall

During our painting, I started to get a spur of inspiration and went all artistic on the rocks. I have ever painted a waterfall before so this was easy for me. One of the girls wanted to help me and I taught her how to paint so that the waterfall looked more realistic. She was ecstatic when she saw how nice it looked. Was so happy with the way it turned out =).

JM doing final touch ups

We also decided to leave a part of us in the painting.

Do you see where it is?

Look closer...

There it is! M cube, for the Ms in our names/surname

This experience has taught us a lot of patience. Throughout the whole thing although at some point we were unhappy or frustrated, we learnt how to just let it slide and move on. And we really worked well together as a team!

Group photo with the final creation

I'm glad we managed to finish the whole wall in one day. We started at 8am in the morning and completed it at 5pm. Amazing right? God is good =)

With sister at the main gate and a present we received from the home as a token of appreciation.

I was very proud of us, especially my sister, for doing this as she has zero talent in the children or painting department. Yet she was still willing to help out. Shows a lot of dedication! It was exhausting but we were glad that we did it.

Not bad for a nursing mum eh =)