One month of giving. One month of helping. One month of service-learning.

09S05. Youth For Causes Project. To benefit aLife! organisation, one that provides counselling and assistance on anything related to fertility and pregnancy. That is our main goal and under the hands of our project leaders and our very own civics tutor ( who is a volunteer herself ), we will succeed.

Everyone deserves a happy family.

Easy as ABC. That was what most of us thought it would be. Just a simple task to be carried out on a bright sunny Saturday 110709. Oh, were we absolutely wrong. Indeed the task at hand was an easy one, one that involved the selling of roses at Novena Church, but everything seemed to be against our luck at that point in time. None of us would have anticipated that it was an upscale challenge all along.




It helped a little with the pastor giving a short announcement about our task during the service and the fact that the crowd was always there. People streaming in and out of the church by the hundreds as services began and ended, all happening in a blink of an eye. To be exact, every 45 minutes.

After noticing the pattern of people’s reactions to us selling the roses, all of us came up with an ingenious strategy. That is : to attack everyone as they leave the church once the service ends and rest in between the services.




The flunctuating weather did not bother us one bit. Despite the occasional drizzles and showers ( with the scorching Sun burning our back every now and then ), our continued enthusiasm and cheery smiles never fail to cease. We received the incessant support from our teachers, peers and not forgeting the ultra-friendly church-goers who were there to chat us up and ask about school and life.

It ended with a bang with a whopping $10,040 collected. A sigh of relief escaped our lips as we signed out with aching legs and sleepy eyes. It was all worth it.

Equipped with the skills and experience from the sales at Novena Church. Wound up and ready for action. Or so we thought we were – yet again. Even with our sweet smiles and polite gestures, the street sales proved to be an even laborious task.

Each of us were given a mediocre paperbag packed with $70 worth of merchandise, ranging from handmade cards, paper folders and also teddy bears. The goal was to sell everything within two hours. Yes, that’s right. EVERYTHING. Shocked, you might be. That was what we thought as well. But with the encouragement from our civics tutor, we chuck aside the word ‘IMPOSSIBLE’ and followed through our CT’s words. “You will never know unless you try.” And that was what we did.




With a multi-pronged approach in mind, we were scattered all over Singapore to maximise our capabilities and possibilities. From the conventional street sales to door-to-door sales to visitng former schools and even telemarketing, it demonstrated our diverse range of ideas to complete the same given task. Despite being warned by the HDB hub security for illegal gathering and conducting a what-they-claimed-to-be an unauthorised street sale, it didn’t demoralise our spirits and dragged us down.




The success rate was varied. Some of us worked our charm and achieved our target while the rest of us were not too pleased with our results. Despite all that, we know that we’ve tried our best and there were a pocket of us whom bought the merchandise to ourselves.

We were supposed to end at 4 in the afternoon – the latest at 5pm – but on till 6pm to help clear up and rearrange the leftover stocks. We laughed at the hilarious photos that were taken and camwhored even more at the end. It showed the world how we are as a cheerful class who knows when to work hard and when to play hard.

Although not all our goals were fulfilled, the satisfaction and the pleasure of helping others was one that overwhelmed all factors of failure. What more can we ask for other than the contentment of one’s self for trying our ultimate best and the monetary aid that we’ve rendered to our chosen organisation? Advertisements for the volunteer organisation and to promote the sparing of thought for the needy. All these in the name of indirect assistance.

But, the most important thing of all was that we bonded more as one family, lending a hand and pulling each other up when we fall and egging one another on when we felt like giving up.




No one said service learning was easy. That was one major lesson learnt. It opened up our eyes to notice the volunteers who sweat through the exact same arduous task of street sales and flag days everyday, maybe even much worse. We should respect them and stop to give a little donation to bring a smile to their face and to the smiles on those that we’ve helped. Even with just a small donation from spare change, it will go a long way into making a difference. We should indeed appreciate ourselves and the things that we are fortunate with instead of always focusing on the negative side of life.

Being a servant leader. With the past mistakes and lessons learnt from them, we can come up with better strategies and novel ways to overcome the problems. The next time we plan a service-learning, we should involve everyone in the class and update each other on the process so that we give our thoughts and follow through the journey. Certainly, the next project would be one that provides direct assistance to the target group, one where we can forge even closer ties with each other, one that requires much detailed planning and execution. As we will be much more knowledgeable, it will be an even better learning experience.