Helping Hands: 1221kg of Rice Donated to Families in Need
Evangel Kindergarten sets an awe-inspiring example for showing compassion to the community
Start Small Dream Big invites the youngest members of our community to give back in their own little ways! Every year, preschools from all over Singapore initiate six-month-long community projects during which little minds and hands get to work on improving their society.
Join us these upcoming months as we interview teachers, celebrate with preschoolers, and bring you heartwarming stories from the ground! (Not to mention amazing projects that you can try with your family!)
This week, we bring you the story of Evangel Kindergarten(EK), a preschool that has just completed its Start Small Dream Big project with resounding success!
For the past four years, Evangel Kindergarten’s dedicated teachers and students have been running the EK Community Day Helping Hands Project to collect food donations for needy families under the Woodlands Social Centre (WSC). WSC provides welfare assistance such as food ration to families in financial hardship.
“It’s not about the amount of rice they donate; it’s about understanding why they are donating.” — Mrs Fonseca, Principal of Evangel Kindergarten
As part of their lesson on giving back to community, the children are encouraged to contribute 1kg of rice each. And with approximately 280 students in her preschool, Mrs Fonseca, principal of Evangel Kindergarten, had initially hoped to collect 300kg of rice through the Helping Hands project. The school easily hit its target but the donations kept coming in! By the time the project had come to an end, Evangel Kindergarten had collected 1221kg of rice! That’s over four times their original target!
To celebrate this achievement, the Evangel Kindergarten students and teachers threw a party for the closure of their Start Small Dream Big project, and invited Sembawang GRC Member of Parliament, Mr Amrin Amin to grace the event.
“Regardless of how much we have, we must learn to give. We got to where we are because of an ecosystem, and we need to give back to this ecosystem.” — Sembawang GRC MP Amrin Amin
LittleLives Angels were there to support and livestream Evangel Kindergarten’s generous initiative! Of course, we also interviewed Mrs Fonseca because we just had to know how the Helping Hands Project achieved the amazing success that it did!
Q: 1221 kilograms of rice in donations is an incredible achievement! Were you expecting to receive this much?
Mrs Fonseca: I was expecting to collect only 300kg of rice — roughly about one kilogram from each child, and we have about 280 children. The most important objective of the EK Community Helping Hands Project is that the children learn to share and care for others. It’s not about the amount of rice they donate; it’s about understanding why they are donating.
“At the core, I think people simply saw that this is a good cause and they wanted to be part of it.” — Mrs Fonseca
But we’ve been blessed with very generous parents and a very generous community around us. Even parents of ex-students contribute yearly! Last year, we received 210kg from the parents of an ex-student; and this year, they’ve donated 135kg!
Q: How are contributors able to donate such a large amount?
And this year, our teachers wanted to take part too, so we contributed as a team. After seeing our Facebook posts, even my relief teacher and ex-colleague sent over 20kg of rice! This is how we collected so much rice. At the core, I think people simply saw that this is a good cause and they wanted to be part of it.
Q: How do you help the children understand the purpose of the Helping Hands project?
“We’ve explained to [the children] that there are families and children out there who…are not as fortunate, and that we want to help these families.” — Mrs Fonseca
We encourage the children to reflect. Many of our children here are very fortunate. They can easily eat the food of their choice and buy the toys they want at anytime. We’ve explained to them that there are families and children out there who don’t have this blessing and are not as fortunate, and that we want to help these families.
We also have the I-Care Program, which is about character building. In this program, we teach the children about kindness and about sharing and caring. As we conduct the I-Care Program concurrently with our Start Small Dream Big project, the teachers share stories about less fortunate families with the children. We constantly try to remind them to think of these communities. For example, we recently had a puppet show with Singa and the Kindness Cubbies, in which the core value taught was, “Kindness starts with me.” All of our programs come together nicely to teach our children values. The most important thing we want to teach them is (a) kindness starts with me, and (b) learn to share and care.
Q: Were there any challenges you faced in the duration of this project?
No, by God’s grace actually. And I wasn’t expecting any challenges, either. I was very confident that we would at least meet our target of 300kg because we have very generous parents. We only expected 1kg from each child because that’s part of their learning. But I knew that, out there, there are many generous parents who were willing and eager to contribute more.
Evangel Kindergarten has taught us a great deal about teaching kids to be generous and compassionate through example! For awe-inspiring stories written by teachers, head to the Start Small Dream Big webpage! And for more of our Start Small Dream Big feature stories, follow the LittleLives Blog, and tune in to our Facebook page for updates and classroom ideas!
